Category: Arduino

  • How BAD are cheap 18650 Li-Ion batteries from China?

    China is a magical place where you can get everything for a fraction of a price. Like 10000mAh 18650 LiIon batteries for $1.5. Of course, we have to begin with a note, that there are no 10000mAh 18650 batteries! Technology does not allow for such energy density. And if they would exist, they would not…

  • FS1000A and XY-MK-5V – How they work – cheap 433MHz Arduino radio

    The FS1000A transmitter and XY-MK-5V 433Mhz receivers are probably the cheapest options if you want to do any kind of radio transmission with Arduino. And many people assume that it will work in their application no problem. The truth is, that it’s not that simple. The way how whose 433MHz radio modules are made puts…

  • How to use stepper motors with Arduino

    Stepper motors are the workhorse of modern automation and mechatronics. You want something to more and move precisely how much wanted it to move? You use a stepper motor. This is why, we use steppers in cars, robots, all kinds of automation, 3D printers, CNC machines. You name it. The main difference between a stepper…

  • DIY camera slider with ESP32 and Arduino

    If you go into the video production, even as simple as short videos for YouTube, you will discover that to shoot better B-rolls and add some dynamics to usually static shots (if you do not work with a real cameraman), one could use a camera slider! You can buy one. That is always an option.…

  • LILYGO T5 4.7-inch E-paper ESP32 development board

    One of the biggest advantages of ESP32 development boards (without even counting the speed, flash size, WiFi, Bluetooth, and two cores) is that they come in a variety of shapes and sizes: bare boards, with OLED, with color LCD, with LoRa chipset, with GPS modem, etc., etc. And finally, you can get them with an…

  • How to generate PPM signal with ESP32 and Arduino

    The PPM protocol for encoding Remote Control channel values is now a legacy. Still, it is widely accepted by different hardware and when tinkering with Arduino, remote control, and working on own accessories for flight controllers, PPM is still a valid option. A few years ago I presented a code that allows generating PPM stream…

  • ESP32, Arduino and Timer/Alerts

    Because of completely different architecture, ISR and Timer solutions known from other Arduino compatible platforms, especially AVR/ATmega does not work on ESP32. They don't. At all. If you would like to port any code that uses timers from AVR Arduino to ESP32 Arduino, you would have to rewrite them completely. However, timers and alarms with…

  • DIY Drone Gesture Control – DIY Motion Controller

    Together with the DJI FPV Drone we, RC and FPV hobby enthusiasts, got a new accessory: DJI Motion Controller. It does a pretty obvious thing that we know for years from the Nintendo Wii controller: with this device, you get gesture control over your FPV Drone. You tilt it left, drone turns left. You tilt…

  • ESP32 and multiple I2C buses

    One of the advantages of the ESP32 microcontrollers over the competitions is dual-core architecture and two I2C buses. Yes, the I2C bus allows connecting multiple slave devices to single pair of SCL SDA wires. As long as slave device addresses are unique, everything will work just fine: OLED display, LM75 temperature sensor, MPU6050 gyroscope. However,…