Flashing Lights Suite Electronic Production VC best DIY Production Suite

I built the Flashing Lights Suite Electronic Production VC best DIY Production Suite from eBay

Building LED Sound Control Melody Lamp Electronic VC best DIY Kits Suite

I bought the LED Sound Control Melody Lamp Electronic VC best DIY Kits Suite from eBay.

Build the Mobile Phone Signal Flash Light Radiation Power Kit

I built the Mobile Phone Signal Flash Light Radiation Power DIY Suite from Ebay which costs about £1 from China. The circuit would flash an LED when there is an incoming or outgoing call from a mobile phone.

Building the Lie Detector Kit

I built a simple lie detector circuit. The lie detector kit from Maplin demonstrates the basic principles of lie detection: the change in skin resistance in the presence of perspiration.

3D Design and Printing

Here are some pictures of an elbow joint that was 3d printed. The designs were printed in 4 parts and glued together to form an elbow joint. 

Working with an Incremental Rotary Encoder

A rotary encoder is used to measure rotational speed, angle and acceleration of an object. It is used to precisely measure rotation of a joint or motor. Rotary encoders are used to provide direct physical feedback of motor position, joint position, and speed of rotation. Unlike potentiometers, it can turn infinitely with no end stop. Rotary encoders come in various kinds of resolutions. The number of pulses or steps generated per complete turn varies from 16 - 1024 pulses/revolution.

Connecting a switch to a microcontroller

The most common way of connecting a switch to a microcontroller is via a pull-up resistor to 5v as shown below

When the switch is open, a logic 1 (5v) is connected to the microcontroller. When the switch is closed, a logic 0 (0v) is connected to the micro, This type of resistor shown above is called a pull up resistor. A pull-up resistor is a resistor connected between the microcontroller and a positive power supply voltage.

Delay timing with a microcontroller

The instructions we program into a microcontroller work by moving and manipulating data in memory locations known as user files and registers.

Some micros such as PIC16 and ATMega328 microcontrollers are 8 bit microcontrollers, which mean that the memory locations, user files and registers are made up of 8 binary digits shown below. Bit 0 is the Least Significant Bit (LSB) and Bit 7 is the Most Significant Bit (MSB).

Wind Power Generator Kit

The Eco Biker wind power generator kit is designed to teach about green energy. It creates great fun to learn about how to convert wind energy into a useful form of energy such as using wind turbines to make LED light up. The stronger the wind is made, the faster the biker rides as well as the brighter the LED is lit.

The kit is a great way for teaching children how to assembly parts and they also get to learn about electricity generation

Parts include generator with LED, gears, round shaft, tapping screw, rubber pad, cable ties, assembly parts and instruction booklet for building the kit shown in the pictures below.

Tesla coil Wireless Power Transmission: Slayer Exciter Circuit

Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla. It is a form of induction coil for producing high voltage, high-frequency alternating currents. Nikola Tesla in 1891 demonstrated wireless power transmission by lighting light bulbs from across a stage. A Tesla coil can be in the form of a Switched or Solid State Tesla Coil (SSTC). In this mode, a transistor is used to switch pulses of current from a DC power supply through the primary coil.

The circuit developed in this tutorial is called slayer exciter. A slayer exciter is a small SSTC coil. A Slayer Exciter is an air-cored transformer that steps up a very low DC voltage to a very high AC voltage. This creates an electromagnetic field around the coil that is capable of lighting up fluorescent and neon light bulbs.