Launching Open Source Home Automation Site!

Taking my home automation tinkering to the next level, I am launching catrpillr.com as an open-source solution to home automation. The site contains circuits, software, firmware, and documentation. Be advised that you currently still need at least intermediate knowledge of electronics to put these pieces together. The current solution allows you to fairly easily [...]

Connecting Multiple AVR/Arduinos via I2C/TWI

Since my RF receivers require a full hardware-based UART to function reliably, I decided to opt for adding a simple attiny2313 as a controller connected to an Arduino. Ready to build a simple protocol, I decided to do a little more research into I2C — the inter-integrated-circuit protocol which puts multiple digital micro-controllers on a [...]

Atmega/Arduino (Soft-) Serial Ports

In the implementation of the “reverse” channel of my home automation system, the RF receiver will transmit radio data back to the master controller which in return sends it to the computer. Since the atmega168/328’s processors used in the standard Arduino only have one hardware-based serial port (UART), I tried for the software-based serial that [...]

iPhone Garage Door Opener

You keep forgetting your keys but would never let your precious iPhone out of sight? Then nothing should seem more obvious than the need to open your garage door with your iPhone. An Arduino and a few microcontrollers, relays, rf link transmitters and receivers and some firmware later, it’s now reality. Check out the prototype [...]

Talking to an Arduino from Ruby/Rails

As I’m in the process of building a full home-automation suite so I can finally open my garage door with my iPhone (stay tuned, more on that soon), I wanted to quickly post this since it actually wasn’t really easily found online and I spent a few minutes (ok, more like an hour) fiddling with [...]

Taking an Open-Source Approach to Hardware (WSJ)

The Wall Street Journal has another article on open source hardware and Arduinos up today.
The palm-sized Arduino serves as an electronic brain running everything from high schoolers’ robots to high-end art installations. But perhaps the oddest thing about the device is the business model behind it.

Read it here.

Installing Arduino IDE on Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10

Worth re-posting. The rxtx lib shipped with the 64bit Koala seems busted.  Thanks!
http://chemicaloliver.net/programming/fixing-arduino-on-ubuntu-9-10-karmic-x64/

Tinkering Makes Comeback Amid Crisis

The Wall Street Journal has an article today about tinkering, real hardware, and Arduinos. It’s trying to link it to the financial crisis, more power to them. I started playing with light bulbs and batteries when I was 7 (or was it 8? ;-) and the Arduino is the microcontroller electronics kit I never got [...]

Remote Controlled Arduinos

I got a pair of these extremely cheap RF Link receiver and transmitter pairs for under $5 each. They operate at 434 MHz and supposedly can transmit at up to 2400bps. I was hoping to be able to build some nifty firmware which allowed these things to flawlessly communicate bidirectionally (well, one at a time), [...]

Connecting Relays to Arduinos

Finally having re-submerged from project chaos, I finally have a little time to spend playing with circuits again. While I’m toying with pieces to ultimately automate the entire house, like an RFID-based garage door opener. I figured I might as well post about individual pieces along the way.
The first one is a relay driving circuit. [...]