DIY electronic riddle advent calendar

Posted on by nerdhutblog

Oh yes, Christmas! It’s almost that season of the year again. And to shorten the time between the 1st of December and Christmas Eve’, I thought about a bit more interesting advent calendar than one, that only has chocolate in it. This electronic advent calendar offers a riddle that you can create for a loved one or a friend and give it to them so they can try to solve it before Christmas arrives. It offers a clue every day and it presents all unlocked clues on a website that runs on the device itself. The only two things it needs to work is a power supply and a WiFi network it can connect to. And the best thing is: It is really simple to build and it can be re-used every year and it can also be used for other occasions (for example Valentine’s Day)! Continue reading DIY electronic riddle advent calendar

Homemade DIY word clock – Low cost variant

Posted on by nerdhutblog

In this article I want to cover an alternative I’ve come across while building the “real” word clock project. This version will not feature a 12×12 LED-Matrix display. Instead it’s made with LED strips and only the significant words on the clock can light up. With this method you can’t display custom messages, but the whole build won’t cost you as much either. Read all about this build in this article or watch this video:

Continue reading Homemade DIY word clock – Low cost variant

Quick build: DIY bench power supply from an old computer’s PSU

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I have taken apart several old computers this weekend and so I had several old PSU laying around afterwards. I opened one up that was known to be faulty, that’s why I got the computer for free. So I took a quick look inside and several caps were leaking. I decided not to throw it away, instead I repaired the PSU and gave the internals a new life. I actually had this idea years ago but I didn’t have a spare PSU I could take apart. Here is a rough guide on how to build your own power supply for almost no cost at all! Continue reading Quick build: DIY bench power supply from an old computer’s PSU

Homemade DIY word clock – Part 3.1

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Introduction

Obsolete information! Please view this article for a complete and easier guide!

This is the last revision I’m going to post before I completely finish the post. It has all the features I wanted and defined in the first part, and it’s as easy to manufacture and to build as possible. So this is just a really short and quick update with the newest files for editing and printing. Continue reading Homemade DIY word clock – Part 3.1

Homemade DIY word clock – Part 3

Posted on by nerdhutblog

Introduction

Obsolete information! Please view this article for a complete and easier guide!

In this part I’ll discuss the code, needed to set and read the current time from the RTC and to control the individual LEDs on the LED matrix:

Continue reading Homemade DIY word clock – Part 3

Homemade DIY word clock – Part 2.1 (Update)

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An update on the project

Obsolete information! Please view this article for a complete and easier guide!

It’s been a while since I posted something about the wordclock build. I want to apologise for that. I’ve been somewhat busy because of the university and I haven’t quite found the time to write about the project. Also it took me some tries to make the PCB at home. It took five tries until I was satisfied with the outcome.

Continue reading Homemade DIY word clock – Part 2.1 (Update)