Tag Archives: Electronics

Beaglebone Coding 101: Buttons and PWM

Posted on March 16, 2012 by dwatts

Updated Mar 20: Corrected the settings in the “Controlling PWM Using the File System” section. Updated Mar 21: Corrected the max PWM frequency – definitely not 250 Hz! Updated Mar 25: Correct PWM settings example: set duty_cycle to 0 before … Continue reading →

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Beaglebone Coding 101: Using the Serial and Analog Pins

Posted on January 22, 2012 by dwatts

[Updated Jan 25: Correction! There is a 1.8V voltage source on the Beaglebone: Port 9 Pin 32.  Thanks to Koen Kooi for the info.  I've updated the text with this information] [Update May 5: In kernel version 3.2.14, the file … Continue reading →

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Beaglebone Coding 101: Blinking an LED

Posted on January 5, 2012 by dwatts

[Updated Jan 22 - various improvements to the Python sample code at the end of the article] In November, Texas Instruments, Digi-Key and the other members of Beagleboard.org, the Beaglebone.  This is a simpler, more hobbyist-friendly little brother to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics, Gadgets, Programming | Tagged , , , , | 38 Comments

A Pachube Google Gadget: Size Matters

Posted on November 5, 2011 by dwatts

As described in past articles, I use the Pachube online Database/Internet-Of-Things-Thingee to log data from Tweet-A-Watt and various other sensors. (It’s pronounced “Patch-bay”, apparently, but that won’t stop me from my thinking “Pa-Chew-Bee” every time I see the word. Feel … Continue reading →

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FEZ XBee Sensor: Hat Trick

Posted on October 29, 2011 by dwatts

As mentioned at the end of my Watching the Watcher article, the Netduino Plant Light project is going to take a sharp turn at this point, losing both the Netduino and the Plant Light.  I’m going to spin off some … Continue reading →

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Netduino: Watching the Watcher

Posted on August 23, 2011 by dwatts

Note: This article is an installment in a series about building a plant light controller (and beyond) on the Netduino microcontroller platform.  For previous articles in the series, click here.  It’s been a few months now since the Netduino in this … Continue reading →

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Netduino Meets World

Posted on August 3, 2011 by dwatts

[Updated August 6: Added a couple of tips to the section on using minicom to configure the XBee.] [Updated August 7: Added "Windows Weirdness" section with workarounds for problems with pySerial on Windows] Note: This article is an installment in … Continue reading →

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A Nimbits Gadget: Programmer’s Show And Tell

Posted on June 2, 2011 by dwatts

Updated June 4: I’ve corrected a couple of things, as marked in blue. Updated Dec 3: I made a small code change to fix the autoscale feature, as marked in green below. In my last post, I gave a user’s … Continue reading →

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A Nimbits Gadget: Minding the Data Store

Posted on May 21, 2011 by dwatts

Updated June 4: I’ve corrected a couple of things, as marked in blue. Also, developers might be interested in my follow-up blog entry A Nimbits Gadget: Programmer’s Show And Tell Updated Dec 3/11: I fixed a broken feature: autoscaling of … Continue reading →

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Netduino: A Little Help From Its Friends

Posted on April 23, 2011 by dwatts

Note: This article is an installment in a series about building a plant light controller (and beyond) on the Netduino microcontroller platform.  For previous articles in the series, click here. If you’ve made the switch to programming with .Net Micro … Continue reading →

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