Let's Make It (HD) - Tech-zen.tv

This week we show you how to make the Arduino act like a keyboard and/or a mouse so that you can build your own controller for your computer. In this example we use a joystick as the mouse and 4 buttons to show how you can send keyboard commands.

This week we are going to build a time lapse camera controller with an Arduino, but before we get into the weeks project, we have a couple of viewer emails we are going to review. Garage Door control must be the hot topic recently because all of the viewer emails this week are around garage door controls.

This week we make a Lie Detector or Biofeedback machine if you prefer using just a few simple parts and an Arduino.

So what do you do if the inputs and outputs on your Arduino are not enough for you and you need to add more. In this episode we talk about just one of the ways. We introduce you to a 16 bit I/O chip that runs over i2C. You can put up to 8 of these chips on the i@c bus to add 112 I/O ports to your Arduino using just 2 pins on the Arduino itself.

The chip we demonstrate is a Microchip MCP23017. You can get that chip from our online store at tech-zen.tv.

We were not going to do a show this week because Mike is on vacation but we did one anyways. Since we did not prepare we decided to answer viewer emails. So no new projects this week.

This week we go through multiplexing. Bob gives us a presentation that he gave last weekend on how multiplexing works and how to use an arduino timer to help with the multiplexing.

This week we show you a cool free program that allows you to create a quick circuit design with either a schematic or breadboard design.

Using this same software you can also layout a circuit board, either autoroute and/or manually route the runs. You can even use Fritizing to create the files to send to a board producer to have your design made. Oh, and we show you how you can even have Fritizing make the board for you.

This week we walk through the steps to install XBMC on a Raspberry Pi to make your own inexpensive media center. Then we show you just some of what the Xbox Media Center can do.

This week we show how you can make an infrared learning remote with an Arduino. You will be amazed how simple and how few parts are actually needed to make this work.

This week we show you how to read a temperature sensor then we build a Thermostat that monitors the temperature and turns on the AC, Heat or Emergency Heat. Then we take it one step further and turn that same thermostat into a wireless thermostat using Zigbee to control the remote control unit.