Irrighino has been one of my most appreciated projects: it’s a automatic irrigation system – based on Arduino Yun – with a web-based interface, optimized for smartphones. After having published the project on this blog, it was reviewed by Open Electronics and a dedicated shield was also produced. The shield is still sold on Futurashop: When it was launched the…
In my previous tutorial I explained how to build a simple DCC accessory decoder with Arduino. To keep the sketch simple, all the configuration parameters for the decoder (in particular its address) were defined as constants: Often it can be useful to change the configuration of the decoder without re-programming its firmware (= the sketch that runs on…
This year in March, Massimo Banzi announced on the Arduino blog the production of a new revision (Rev.2) of the Arduino Yun board. In addition to some improvements on the hardware design, the new revision offers a complete update of the software side of the Yun, that is the Linux distribution (OpenWrt) running on the board. The original Yun was…
After having developed a sketch using the Arduino IDE, you can compile and load it on the Arduino board connected to your PC with just a click on the upload button: The program is stored in the flash memory of the microcontroller (on Arduino Uno boards this is the ATmega328p). You can upload your program…
Some time ago my friend Mauro Alfieri showed me an interesting development board produced by DFRobot and called Bluno Beetle (now Beetle Ble). It seemed the perfect board to start “playing” with the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology; therefore I ordered one board directly from the DFRobot store. I expected to receive the usual anonymous parcel with…
After having designed a shield to interface Arduino with a DCC bus, today I’ll show you how to realize a simple accessory decoder to control a couple of leds. Accessory decoder The DCC standard (specifically the document S-9.2.1 DCC Extended Packet Formats) defines different types of decoders, which are devices – connected to the DCC bus…
In addition to the love for electronics, in my (little) spare time I’m working with my friend Davide on a model railway in H0 scale; in particular my main task is to take care of the digital control of locos, turnouts and accessories. The de facto standard to digitally control a model railway is named DCC (Digital Command Control);…
In this tutorial, divided in two posts, I’ll show you how to use RFID (Radio-frequency Identification) tags with Arduino. In the first part you’ll learn how to connect the reader to your Arduino and how to write a simple sketch to display the tag’s ID, while in the second part you’ll learn how to build a complete access control…
STM32 is a family of 32bit microcontrollers manufactured by STMicroelectronics and based on the ARM Cortex M core. The STM32 family is divided into different lines of microcontrollers (L0-1-4, F0-1-2…) depending on their features and the use they are designed for: These microcontroller are widely used in the industrial world… for example both Pebble watches and Fitbit bracelets are based on STM32…
A couple of days ago, Arduino announced the global availability (before you hade to be invited) of Arduino Web Editor, the web-based development environment for Arduino boards. Arduino Web Editor is a component of Arduino Create, the web platform which allows makers to develop and share their projects, collaborating with the other users. The most important news is…