Category: Arduino

Projects relating to the wonderful Arduino.

Arduino Launcher for the KDE menu

Carlitos Arduino, Software 1 Comment

The Arduino software is good and works very well under Linux. Nevertheless, it doesn’t create a menu item when installed and it can be tricky to create one for those who are not very used to Linux (like me).

In order to add a KDE menu launcher for the Arduino software, open the KDE Menu Editor, create a new item and put

cd /opt/arduino-0007/; ./arduino

in the Command field. Also, make sure that Run in terminal is checked and replace /opt/arduino-0007/ by your own installation path.

I’m sure there are thousands of other ways of doing this (including many than only require a few commands in the terminal) but at least this ways is pretty simple and and can be done without knowing that much about Linux.

Arduino POV Prototype

Carlitos Arduino, My Projects 15 Comments

This is my first attempt to create a persistence of vision (POV) display using the Arduino. The ultimate goal is to mount it on my bike wheel and have it display nice things while I ride. But, for now, it consist of an array of 6 LEDs mounted on a turning rig I made From scrap material.

Materials for the rig:

  • 2 old cell phone batteries (found in the garbage) that serve as a counterweight
  • A piece of metal (from an old photocopier) that constitutes the turning blade
  • A fan motor from some sort of broken power supply I found in the UdeM garbage
  • A piece of plastic that makes the base (also from the photocopier)
  • A plastic poster edge (the things used to hold paper posters) that I found in the garbage (it is used to cover the sharp edges of the blade).
  • A heavy metal block that stabilizes the contraption (since it tends to oscillate a bit when it’s turning)
  • A cable with a switch from an IKEA lamp I found in the garbage
  • Lots of cable ties

Materials for the POV circuit:

  • A small breadboard (it came with an electronics magazine)
  • 6 red high power LEDs
  • 6 1 k Ohms resistors
  • A 9V battery w/ battery older

I think the pictures are pretty self explanatory.

The LEDs are directly connected to the pins 2 to 7 of the Arduino and their current is limited by the resistors.
The entire circuit is powered by the 9V battery.

So far I have done some simple patterns for the display and I’ll upload the code soon (it still needs some polish)

I expect to add more LEDs to the design as soon as I get the patterns and the overall code working fine.

Arduino Clones

Carlitos Arduino, General 3 Comments

For my birthday my girlfriend got me 4 Bare-Bone Boards (from the Modern Devices Company). The boards are fully featured Arduino clones. The only difference with the original Arduino (AFAIK) is that they are cheaper (15$ each or less) and better suited for breadboard connection.

What’s an Arduino?

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

- The Arduino Website -

Note that these clones are cheaper because they require a USB-to-TTL serial cable (20 $). The advantage of this approach is that the cable includes the required USB controller chip and can be used to program many boards. In short, you only need to pay for the USB connectivity once and get to use it on as may boards as you want.

Also, I was very (really very) pleased to see that the Arduino software works perfectly under Linux and that there are instructions for installation on all major distros (including Ubuntu) in the Arduino website.
Update: Here are a few extra shots done with my new camera. This is the new Rev. D board.