Engineering

This section serves as a record of personal engineering work across a range of hardware and software disciplines. The material is organized into several categories—projects, embedded applications, laboratory studies, analog and digital electronics, mixed systems, components, and modeling and simulation—each representing a different area of practical development.

Battery Powered Nano Development Module

Battery Powered Nano Development Module

While experimenting with a 128x32 OLED as a voltage meter, it becomes apparent that the display and its associated Arduino SBC provide a pretty good way to set them together on a printed circuit board ... Read More
Temperature Monitor & Control with a DHT22 Sensor

Temperature Monitor & Control with a DHT22 Sensor

With a DHT22 (AM2302) temperature and humidity sensor, an Arduino Nano is programmed to activate a relay that in turn permits a fan that provides cooling to a designated system, or target. The relay is ... Read More
IMU Acceleration, Gyro, & Magnetometer Calibration

IMU Acceleration, Gyro, & Magnetometer Calibration

In an effort to produce reliable quantitative angles of tilt and roll of the IMU module, it is necessary to calibrate all 9-axis vectors. Acceleration, gyroscope, and magnetometer are together calibrated together as a single ... Read More
IMU Data Serial Plotter Setup and Configuration

IMU Data Serial Plotter Setup and Configuration

Similar to the serial plotter on the Arduino Sketch IDE, there is a useful real-time serial plotter application at the Hackaday site. It is free and it offers configuration options that add to the utility ... Read More
BNO055 IMU 9-Axis DOF Acceleration Analysis

BNO055 IMU 9-Axis DOF Acceleration Analysis

In an effort to further delve into the inner workings of the BNO055 accelerometer and its functions, the serial plotter was applied to the project. To better understand how the produced data is rendered over ... Read More
BNO055 IMU 9-Axis DOF Hardware & Software Setup

BNO055 IMU 9-Axis DOF Hardware & Software Setup

Once initial hardware is in place, it is necessary to gather the libraries to run the software and get connectivity and begin gathering the Arduino unit and the BNO055 IMU Fusion module data. In this ... Read More
LED Matrix Display with Single Digit Messaging

LED Matrix Display with Single Digit Messaging

The LED Matrix display in this project can be more versatile than other typical LED indicators. Standard LEDs and 7-segment LEDs have their unique or dedicated purpose for readout or illumination to indicate activity or ... Read More
Motion Detector with Passive Infrared (PIR) Sensor

Motion Detector with Passive Infrared (PIR) Sensor

This project involves a motion detector that "observes" its immediate environment to inform the Arduino that an active state change is present. The Arduino in turn processes that state change for code-driven events to make ... Read More
Binary Counter, Logic & Circular Shift Register

Binary Counter, Logic & Circular Shift Register

The 74HC595 is a CMOS logic device that functions as an 8-bit Serial-Input / Serial or Parallel-Output shift register with latched 3-State Outputs. The shift register accepts serial data and provides a serial output. The ... Read More
Smoke Detector with Alarm and LED Indicators

Smoke Detector with Alarm and LED Indicators

While the MQ-2 gas sensor is one among a range of gas sensor types, it is roughly suitable for coarse experimentation for substances other than smoke. This sensor is sensitive to smoke and Liquid Petroleum ... Read More
Flame Detection with Sound Alert & Warning Light

Flame Detection with Sound Alert & Warning Light

An Arduino Nano is set up in this project to run a flame detection sensor as a small fire alarm system. The system uses a small active buzzer (muted) and an LED to both simulate ... Read More
Arduino Clone Bootloader Setup & Programming

Arduino Clone Bootloader Setup & Programming

Arduino modules (in this case an Arduino Nano 3.0) may come from China without the hardware initialized with a suitable bootloader. Necessary for project work and programming, a bootloader configuration is necessary for an Arduino ... Read More
DC Motor with Variable Speed Control by Joystick

DC Motor with Variable Speed Control by Joystick

This project makes use of a thumb joystick to control the direction of shaft rotation on a DC motor. The joystick also controls the rotational speed of the motor shaft by how far it is ... Read More
Servo Motors with Two-Axis Joystick Control

Servo Motors with Two-Axis Joystick Control

This project makes use of two servos (Tiankongrc MG995), servo mounting brackets a 2-axis thumb joystick, an active buzzer, and an Arduino Uno R3. To operate the two servos together it is necessary to mount ... Read More
Stepper Motor with Direction Control & Reversal

Stepper Motor with Direction Control & Reversal

This project involved a 5VDC stepper motor and its corresponding ULN2003 driver assembly. Stepper motors are unique from servos or DC motors because they are very precise, have a full range of motion, and they ... Read More
Tilt Switch with LED Indicator and Fan Interrupt

Tilt Switch with LED Indicator and Fan Interrupt

This project was about making a tilt sense system that involves a motor or fan. The system is also programmed and set up with a tip sense light. It simulates a tip-over or roll-over situation ... Read More
Light Sensor Control of Servo with Photoresistor

Light Sensor Control of Servo with Photoresistor

This project makes use of a photoresistor as a light sensor to control the movement of a servo motor's shaft. The change of position in the servo motor's output shaft moves from 0 degrees to ... Read More
Color and Light Control via Infrared Sensor

Color and Light Control via Infrared Sensor

This project runs with an IR sensor that reads a remote control's Hexadecimal data bursts as its buttons are selected. Each button represents a function that becomes executed programmatically within the Nano to affect the ... Read More