The tale of a curious incident, in which I was trying to show how Arduino hinders makers, but was unable to do so because Arduino hindered me!
Arduino: The Reset That Never Was
Category Archives: Arduino
Introduction To The Arduino Serial Plotter
Version 1.6.6 of the Arduino IDE is upon us, and with it – among other novelties – is the Serial Plotter, a basic graphing utility for visualizing data, debugging and show-off. What is it, and how to use it? Here’s a little guide…
PunyCam: The Servo-and-LDR Based Camera
What does the world look like through the eyes of a light dependent resistor (LDR)? My unimpressive PunyCam shows us the answer… ever so slowly!
Bit By a Mouse: Data Via Pointer Motion
Can the PC’s mouse input be used to send binary data from an embedded system to a desktop software? And, more importantly, can this be done without affecting the regular usage of the mouse? As it turns out, within a few limitations, the answer is yes. Here’s how.
Arduino And The VC0706 JPEG Camera
An Arduino equipped with a camera sounds like a great start for a wide variety of projects. Unfortunately, the Arduino’s hardware is really not up to the data volumes and rates required for meaningful image processing. This problem has a few partial solutions. In this post I will present one of them – a serial-connection camera with the VC0706 chip, and the dedicated code library by Adafruit.
(Software)Serial Killer
In me previous rant, I mentioned that even Arduino’s own SoftwareSerial library suffers from issues that make it unreliable. Here’s how you can see that for yourself.
Why Arduino Libraries Suck
I was never a big fan of using Arduino libraries (i.e. libraries written by people other than yourself), but this time it’s gone too far. They simply can’t be trusted. They do more harm than good. These libraries are evil. Do you think I’m exaggerating? Well cover your nose, because we’re about to go where things really stink!
Serial Monitor Deluxe: Introduction
The Serial Monitor of the Arduino IDE is used extensively by most, if not all, Arduino programmers. it is also unbelievably basic, and provides only the simplest of capabilities. On the plus side, that makes it easy to operate, but it also causes some frustrations. Isn’t it time for a better alternative?
Reviving an old joystick with an Arduino Leonardo
When I found this ancient QuickShot Joystick which seemed to be still in working order, I just had to make it work again. Of course, no modern computer knows how to interface with such a dinosaur, so I build a “translator” system using and Arduino Leonardo. Here’s how.
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Dealing With “AVRDude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync” Errors
These error messages are not only common, but also very annoying. Their text is unfriendly and unhelpful; so what’s really the problem, and what can you do to fix it if and when it happens to you?
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