Hardware

Articles related to IT Hardware, but also to other physical artifacts of various technologies.

Portable Environmental Monitor

August 12, 2015
4 comments

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….

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The first prototype

August 7, 2015
5 comments

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…

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A true hacker makes his own PCBs

August 6, 2015
7 comments

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…

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Resistive touchscreen

August 6, 2015
4 comments

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…

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Tube: SBT-9 End Window Geiger tube

July 29, 2015
2 comments

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…

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ESP8266 Troubleshooting

July 29, 2015
1 comment

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…

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ILI9341 touchscreen LCD Library

July 23, 2015
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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…

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Tube: LND-712 End Window Alpha-Beta-Gamma Detector

July 5, 2015
3 comments

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…

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Digital bench power supply

April 8, 2015
27 comments

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…

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Serial Digital to Analog converter (serial DAC)

April 8, 2015
1 comment

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…

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Comparison of dosimeters

April 3, 2015
1 comment

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…

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DIY Dosimeter Geiger Counter KIT1.0

March 8, 2015
22 comments

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…

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Atmega8 UDP Client

February 21, 2015
1 comment

As a follow-up to Radu’s Atmega8 and enc28J60 for ethernet support article, I used the libraries to implement an ATmega8 UDP client using ENC28J60 that broadcasts a simple “Hello World” message over Ethernet. Circuit Diagram is exactly the same as simple web-server project(take a look at Schematic&Docs in the project folder). Do not forget to connect CS to PORTB2 if you are using Atmega8 and modify CS pin section in…

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Atmega128 Voodoo

February 9, 2015
9 comments

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…

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The AVR Watchdog

January 15, 2015
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The AVR Watchdog is an essential mechanism to protect long term run applications from code freezes affecting their functionality.

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Tube: SI-22G (CИ-22Г) Sensitive Geiger Muller

October 18, 2014
2 comments

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…

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