Tag Archives: Arduino

Rescue Shield Kits (PCBs + components) are back in stock!


I sold out of Rescue Shield kits just after the holidays. Fortunately, new PCBs and components arrived last week. Hooray for no back-ordered components this time! What used to be the norm is now the exception. (Technically, green LEDs did ship a week later than the rest, but as I was still busy soldering boards it didn’t affect the overall lead time to produce kits.)

I’m happy to announce that kits are back in stock now.

You can order one on the Rescue Shield kit page.

Cool Tools: Elecfreaks SMD Prototyping Shield

elecfreaks_smd_protoThese SMD prototyping shields from Elecfreaks are pretty useful for building and testing discrete circuits made with mostly 2 and 3-terminal surface mount devices. I’ve used them quite a bit over the past year to prototype power supply and switching circuits (mostly SOT-23s). I like to cut them into small pieces with a large metal shear and stick them to larger PCBs (the ones I’m testing/modifying) with thick double-stick foam tape.

 

Rescue your bricked AVR micro with the Rescue Shield, now back in stock!

Rescue Shield kits are (finally!) back in stock.

AVR HV Rescue Shield

The Rescue Shield is a 100% open source, Arduino-based high voltage mode fuse programmer for AVR microcontrollers.

It allows you bring  an otherwise “bricked” or misconfigured AVR back to life by editing the configuration fuses that control the operation of the RESET pin, the internal oscillator, and other features of the microcontroller. The Rescue Shield can talk to chips when ordinary ISP programmers can’t.

Follow this link to learn more and place an order.

Hexbright Hacking

The Hexbright is an Arduino-compatible open source flashlight that was the subject of a very successful kickstarter campaign in 2011.

Today I spent a short time working on some custom firmware for it.

My firmware adds two new features:

  • Button presses cycle between modes (low, med, high brightness) as usual, but if you wait longer than CYCLE_DELAY (default 5 seconds) between presses, the next press turns the hexbright off.
  • If the hexbright is left on for longer than AUTO_OFF_MINUTES (defaults to an hour), the hexbright turns off.  Handy for when you prop the light somewhere and forget about it.

You can download my custom Hexbright Arduino sketch here.  If you’re new to the Hexbright, read these well-written instructions first.  You’ll need to install the required USB driver and Arduino board configuration file.

Amazon link: HexBright FLEX, 500 Lumen Programmable LED Flashlight