In the magnetic gyroscope levitation, a magnet is levitated via magnetic forces above another magnet, and stabilised by gyroscopic effect due to a spin that is neither too fast, nor too slow.
I tried, but there was no way to properly solder the BME280 tiny sensor using the soldering iron alone. After destroying one sensor and almost damaging the PCB, it was clear I needed a hot air station for my work on the uRADMonitor-D project. I opted for the 858D, also reviewed on Dave’s EEVBlog. It’s my first time using a hot air station and the BME280 is really a very…
There was a tough road to get the 3x Portable Environmental Monitor beta prototypes to the Hackaday Headquarters in time, but the effort was worth it! With today’s official announcement, the project has advanced to Finalist in the Best Product competition, and to Semifinalist in the Hackaday Prize 2015 competition. Last year it was a thrill as well, with the uRADMonitor-A advancing to Semifinals. With this previous project spread all…
For the Portable Environmental Monitor beta release, both the project summary and the system design document presented some of the things to improve next. The first PCB was fine, but there was a linear regulator wasting power, that had to be replaced. Also, new ideas needed more hardware changes. Here is another hardware iteration to implement all that. The new changes include: – power efficient Lithium battery voltage converter, using…
The portable environmental monitor addresses pollution, the kind that we are unable to see but directly affects our health and causes life threatening diseases. Airborne toxic chemicals, radioactive dust and radioactive radon are correlated with cases of pulmonary cancer. Since our biological senses can do little to warn us of such possible dangers, the plan was to design the Portable environmental monitor as a first line detection and warning system….
It’s been a crazy run, trying to make this happen. After less then one month I now have the first functional hardware iteration or the first prototype. The Portable Environmental Monitor has been brought to life! All that’s left is finalising the enclosure (it will be a nice rugged aluminium enclosure, small enough to fit the palm of the hand, despite the many sensors packed inside) and the software (both…
A true hacker makes his own PCBs. Dual layer. And in the kitchen. Why so? Because doing them as DIY and not paying lots of money to some greedy company is some kind of hack. And if it wasn’t for all the issues I had with the Portable Environmental monitor along the road, I could have used the nice OSHPark voucher I won on Hackaday (Thanks again guys!). But I’ve…
A complicated project July was a tough month, and August is no different. Due to some components arriving late, I’ve only been able to start my work on the Hackaday.io project with considerable delay. So I had to catch up with everything and squeeze the entire development work for this complex project in a month’s timeframe. But the plan was solid and seemed doable … unless Murphy’s laws of chaos…
The MiCS-VZ-89 Air Quality Sensor can detect carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds. This article shows how to access its readings via I2C.
The Sharp GP2Y10 dust sensor can detect dust in air using the reflected infrared light, including very fine smoke particles. See how to use it with a microcontroller.
Pictures: This is a rare Geiger Muller tube with a mica end window that allows it to detect alpha, beta and gamma radiation. It is a good substitute for the LND712 (both pictured above) where a multi-radiatin type detector is required, yet its low availability makes it problematic for any developing project (see uRADMonitor-D). This source indicates the SBT-9 was used in Russian spacecraft: “Vernov and his associates frequently used…
I got a few esp8266 modules back in 2014, shortly after they’ve been announced on HackaDay. I didn’t have much time for them, being caught with other projects, up until recently when the portable environmental monitor project needed a versatile wireless communication mechanism, low powered and if possible at a decent price. The esp8266 seemed the best candidate, but like with everything in life where nothing comes free, getting it…
I got a few QVGA LCD’s with resistive touchscreen for an ongoing project. All that was left to do was putting the driver code together. The LCD code part was very much similar to my previous work on the ILI9163 but this time I went for faster SPI communication (also due to the bigger resolution). The microcontroller – an Atmega128 – uses normal SPI transfer and the external quartz crystal…
Introduction to STM32 microcontrollers shows how to setup the ide and toolchain to edit and compile STM32 apps on a MacOS workstation.
Pictures: An excellent miniature mica window Geiger tube, suitable for detecting Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation. As of 2015, it was selected for the uRADMonitor D series of radiation detectors. Details: Halogen quenched Geiger Muller tube, with a Mica end window making it suitable for detecting alpha beta and gamma radiation. Notes on sensitivity: The sensitivity of this miniature Geiger tube is amazing, placing it closeto the larger SBM-20. Most…
As a follow up to one of my earlier projects, the Variable regulated power supply, initially designed to deliver 0..30Volts at up to 10Amps, I have decided it was time for an upgrade. I kept the enclosure and the nice 250W toroidal transformer, and am reshaping everything as a new digital power supply with regulated voltage and current, short circuit protection, lcd display, buzzer for various alarms, temperature sensor on…
Introduction We’re used to Analog to Digital converters (ADC) in a variety of applications such as voltmeters, thermometers or various other sensors. Their purpose is translating a given signal to a numeric representation. To handle numeric data, we encode it in digital, meaning all content is expressed by sequences of 0 and 1. A set of data is said to be continuous if the elements belonging to the set can…
Like with all measurements, it will be very hard to find two different devices indicating the same readings, especially when we demand increased precision. We now know that there are no such things as absolute time, absolute space, there are no synchronous clocks. It is the same with the absolute measurements, and in some cases it’s becoming more relevant to observe the change: if we see increasing values, we know…
Note: there is a newer version of this project, KIT1.1, see it here If I was to give this project a version number, the closest match would be the uRADMonitor model B. Finally an open source compact radiation dosimeter, that has an LCD and thus allows mobile use, but also comes with an Ethernet adapter so it can do radiation monitoring (uRADMonitor compatible). Yet, this is not quite the uRADMonitor…
An open source code library for the ILI9163 LCD. Circuit diagram for connecting it to an ATmega128 and demo video are included.
The SBM-21 Geiger tube offers relatively good sensitivity especially when compared to its ultra compact size.
The STS-5 is a geiger tube for hard beta and gamma detection, manufactured in USSR in the 60’s, similar in specs to the newer SBM-20.
Apparently I had no better inspiration on how to name this post. It all started with a nice sunny day, when I was in great shape for doing creative work. My plan was to do some research on the following uRADMonitor models B/C, to put everything together and start the design of the new device. With all the extra new features, it was clear I needed a microcontroller upgrade, from…
Eagle diagrams and instructions for building a DIY Development board featuring the powerful Atmega128 microcontroller
SI-3BG Geiger tube is suitable for detecting high radiation doses, but finds little use in DIY applications.
The AVR Watchdog is an essential mechanism to protect long term run applications from code freezes affecting their functionality.
Installing GIT from Virtualmin is easy. You just need to go to Edit Server->Enabled features->Allow Git Repositories Create a repo by going to Services->Git repositories: Then go to Edit Users->select a user->Other user permissions and grant them access to your new repo: You are now ready to add your local code to the new repo: cd ~/firmware git –bare init echo hello > hello.txt git add hello.txt git commit -m…
Pictures: Details: The SI-22G is a highly sensitive hard beta and gamma radiation detector tube, made in USSR during the 80’s for the Soviet Military Needs by the Soviet Institute for Scientific Radiation Technology Research. Notes on sensitivity: This is a highly sensitive tube, thanks to its cathode material and relatively large size. It is perfect for monitoring equipment and DIY dosimeters, superior to the SBM-20 in this sense. The…
A robust regulated high voltage supply, an inverter (boost converter / step-up) 3V to 400V for portable applications.
