***Official Electronics Thread of Officialness (it starts off with lots of Nixie Tube Clock goodness

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Shove the sizes etc into http://www.pcb-pool.com/ppuk/order_productconfiguration_js.html#00 and see what happens. I think thats the correct one. One of their services is to fit smaller jobs together onto a large board so bringing sample costs down.

It seemed to come to about £35 for 4off 50mm x 50mm PCB's so maybe worth a look?



Makhaira said:
Can anyone provide recommendations for places in the UK where I can get a PCB manufactured in a quantity of 4? I need something making for a project, but unfortunately the traces will be so fine that homebrewing isn't really an option. There seem to be plenty of companies around that will do it, but I'm looking at £10+ per board, which rapidly becomes more than the cost of the entire project.

Any suggestions welcomed, otherwise I'll replan the project to use a larger surface area with bigger traces.

Thanks!
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Cheers, I bit the bullet and bought the prefab one in the end, since with such low quantities it was not really any more than getting a custom print.
 
Hey guys, I want to make a auto plant waterer and in the future maybe expand this to other seconsors and operations.
Now you can get moisture senses for arduino, how easy is it to program, would it be easy to say when input hits, x level turn a pump on for z seconds, then wait for y seconds before turning pump back on.
Is this a suitable device to do this? There also seems to be about 20 odd versions of arduino.
Basically needed 4 sensor and 4 output relays to turn stuff on/off.
 
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Glaucus said:
Thanks, got the led blinking.
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Ah the "hello world" of electronics :D

Makhaira said:
Can anyone provide recommendations for places in the UK where I can get a PCB manufactured in a quantity of 4?!
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Does it absolutely have to be the UK?

Unrelated, here's a thing I made :cool:
6846507122_9c26ebeb6c.jpg
 
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Spec me an arduino starter kit please! Not fussed on digital I/O pins, but want built in USB and analogue in's. Cba looking for my USB to FTDI chipthing.
 
PhillyDee said:
Spec me an arduino starter kit please! Not fussed on digital I/O pins, but want built in USB and analogue in's. Cba looking for my USB to FTDI chipthing.
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How about something like this?
http://proto-pic.co.uk/arduino-starter-kit/

The UNO is the most popular board and has USB and 6 analogue inputs (onboard 10 bit ADC). Also comes with some jumper cables, LEDs and sensors to play with :)
 
do cheap packs of multi value resistors normally come in such random values?
or am I reading them wrong.
like
11.4k ohms Brown, Brown, yellow, Red, Brown
182 ohms brown, grey, red, black, brown

Also am I being dumb, or does Jeremy blum not show how to get the com box up, To communicate with the arduino, Tutorial 6 - nvm found it, serial monitor under tools.
 
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Glaucus said:
do cheap packs of multi value resistors normally come in such random values?
or am I reading them wrong.
like
11.4k ohms Brown, Brown, yellow, Red, Brown
182 ohms brown, grey, red, black, brown

Also am I being dumb, or does Jeremy blum not show how to get the com box up, To communicate with the arduino, Tutorial 6 - nvm found it, serial monitor under tools.
Click to expand...

Not usually, they would be E12 values. so 10,12,15,18,22,27,33,39,47,56,68,82 and all the multiples (E12 means 12 graduations per decade, E24 would halve those again and double the amount in a decade).
 
PhillyDee said:
Not usually, they would be E12 values. so 10,12,15,18,22,27,33,39,47,56,68,82 and all the multiples (E12 means 12 graduations per decade, E24 would halve those again and double the amount in a decade).
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Thanks, taht explains things a bit, seems no easy way on these cheap resistors to tell which band is which. Most of the guides online show a big gap, or a different sized band, to easily identify the tolerance mark.

Needed to order some other stuff, so got a new mixed pack coming, hopefully easier to read.
And with some LCD screens, so see if I can get that working with the temp sensor and arduino.

Still can't find out how to connect and use a b003 10A relay shield
 
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Question to any one else who studied electronics

Did your teacher teach you a ryhme to remember resistor colour codes ?
 
I just remember the colours.
Black, brown, red, orange, yellow green blue violet grey white.

as for tolerances, 5% is general purpose and that's gold. If you need more specific 1% or better, they tend not to be as cheap. I can buy most components in bulk and split them down, sell the excess on my website. I am buying a load of tmp36 temp sensors next week.
 
Been tinkering with my Arduino clock for what seems like forever. It's based on the work of Nick Hall from his blog

I've modified his code, added animation and transitions as well as lower case lettering. Also added a night time mode as the panels are painfully bright. Mine is running on an ATMega328P-PU chip on a custom board, about £5 worth :), I needed my Arduino for something else. Here it is in bits still - I WILL finish it one day with a nice perspex case :D

Teething problems :o

Testing the dimming, later added code to do it automatically at 10pm

Added RGB LED back lighting, tidied up "normal" clock mode
 
PhillyDee said:
Cheers, went for the Proto-pic one, it comes with a servo as well, and a starter book for it!
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Good stuff. What have you got planned for it?

Glaucus said:
Still can't find out how to connect and use a b003 10A relay shield
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So apparently there should be a pad on the shield somewhere marked "input", which you need to solder to one of the 5V GPIO pins around the edge of the shield. Then driving that GPIO high/low will enable/disable the relay.

Usual warning about mains voltage, please don't kill yourself :(

lurkio said:
Did your teacher teach you a ryhme to remember resistor colour codes ?
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Yes, but it was quite extraordinarily rude. Probably why I remember it.
 
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