Category Archives: Microcontrollers

LED Kitchen Timer

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Dave wrote in to tell us about the kitchen timer he made:

I just wanted to say thank you for putting together such a great site and set of products. I’m a newbie and after about 4 months o studying your articles and using the Diavolino as my development board, was able to make a cool little kitchen timer for my parents this Christmas. I definitely could not have done it without your articles and products.

He documented the project with a series of videos (youtube playlist) showing his progression through building it. Shown above is the breadboarded prototype next to the finished timer.

Thanks for sharing your project photos and videos, Dave!

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Breadboard Menorah Kit Instructions

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aberson asked about our new Deluxe Electronic Breadboard Menorah kits:

Would it be possible to post the assembly instructions for the solderless kit? (if there are any) I’m wondering if this kit would be suitable for somebody who has no electronics experience at all. Does it call out the row/col number for every resistor, jumper, etc?

Printed instructions do come with the kit, are very helpful, because there’s an actual size component bending guide on the page. We have also posted a pdf version on our documentation site. No prior knowledge of electronics is needed, and we call out the location for each component and provide clear diagrams to follow.

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Two New Menorah Kits

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Breadboard LED Menorah Kit

Hanukkah comes remarkably early this year, starting on Thanksgiving day, November 28.

Today, just in the nick of time, we are releasing two new LED menorah kits for 2013 that complement our consistently popular Deluxe LED Menorah Soldering Kit.

Breadboard LED Menorah Kit - Parts

The first kit, the Deluxe Electronic Breadboard Menorah Kit, is a response to two requests that we frequently receive: (1) for an LED menorah kit that doesn’t require soldering and (2) for a menorah kit with assorted multicolor LEDs— for that assorted-color candle look. (Nailed it!)

The kit includes a 6″ transparent breadboard, 10 mm LEDs in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and warm white, a control button, battery holder, and a pre-programmed microcontroller.

Breadboard LED Menorah Kit
Breadboard LED Menorah Kit

While the electronic components— the microcontroller, resistors, control switch, and LEDs —are essentially the same as in the Deluxe LED Menorah Kit, we’ve had to make quite a few changes to the layout and firmware to redesign the circuit to lay out so neatly on a breadboard. Additionally, as the perceived brightness of different LED colors can vary quite a bit, we’ve included a specific set of per-color resistors to even out the overall brightness levels.

The Deluxe Electronic Breadboard Menorah Kit is in stock now, and ready to make happy campers on some night(s) of Hanukkah this year.

Special Edition LED Menorah Kit

For the second new kit, the multicolor Special Edition Deluxe LED Menorah Kit, we’ve brought the assorted multicolor LEDs back to our original Deluxe LED Menorah Soldering Kit. Because, why should breadboarders have all the fun?

Special Edition LED Menorah Kit

And it even looks good with the lights off! The new Special Edition LED Menorah Kit is in stock and shipping now.

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Proximity activated Snap-o-Lantern

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Gabe Hoffmann wrote in:

I heard you on Science Friday talking about halloween, went home and looked on your website at Snap-O-Lanterns, and was inspired.  I added a phototransistor and infrared LEDs to make a motion sensing small pumpkin that can try to bite you.

Thanks for sharing your project, Gabe!

If you built a Snap-O-Lantern or were inspired by any of our Halloween projects, we’d love to see your photos in our flickr group.

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Snap-O-Lantern Kit

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Just in time for Halloween, we’re launching a Snap-O-Lantern kit. You can still build this robotic snapping pumpkin from scratch using our original instructions, or you can do it the easy way with this kit, which uses one of our ATtiny2313 target boards and has all the parts you’ll need— except the mini-pumpkin and three AA batteries.

We’re putting the full documentation for the kit on our wiki.

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