Recent Articles

Upgrade To Drupal 7 Complete

Today, I upgrade the site to Drupal 7. It was a long time coming and it's finally happened (mostly because I need some of the functionality in D7 for the webapp). For the most part things should be functioning decently. There are some display issues that I'll have to get sorted out, but for the most part things should work.

MacroDuino Webapp 2.0

I made up a short little video demoing some of the functionality that's going in to the new MacroDuino webapp (which is at http://app.practicalmaker.com). It's coming along quite nicely and I expect to have quite a bit of functionality added by the end of the week.

Here's the video:

New MacroDuino Webapp Coming!

My dream of having a single codebase to run a multitude of Arduino projects is starting to come to fruition. William has made some changes to the code that I need to merge in which should fix compiling problems on Arduino 1.0 and it adds some extra functionality to the LCD library.

Making Things Right

First, I believe an apology needs to be made from me to all the people who read this site. I've been unable to update/fulfill orders for the past several months. To anybody who has been affected I offer my sincerest apologies.

What's Coming Down The Pipe?

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted an update on the status of the MacroDuino project. Lately I've just been putting the code through it's paces because it's important for some of the projects that I have in mind that it be rock stable. The good news is that for most applications it can run rock stable for days, but sometimes it locks up for weird reasons. Usually it's an ethernet related problem so I've been working on making that part of the code more stable.

Arduino MacroDuino Webapp Updates 8/19/2011

The latest MacroDuino webapp update brings some much needed UI and usability improvements. If you've seen the webapp in the past you know it looked rather horrendous with many different configuration options and settings. In this update I've gotten rid of all the cruft and replaced it with what I think is a webapp that functions much better.

25G Reef Tank Build Part 2

Part 2 of the 25 gallon reef tank build series. The tank has been up and running for a little over a week right now. The live rock has been added and a couple functions have been enabled from the MacroDuino code. The most important I guess is the temperature control. The temperature macro is setup so that if the temperature drops below 80.5F the heater turns on and if it goes above 80.75F the heater turns off.

Arduino + Reading PCF8574 Pins as Inputs

A reader contacted me and asked if I would be so kind to put an example up showing you how to use the Arduino Port Expander Shield as digital inputs. I primarily used this as digital outputs before, but after writing the sketch I've got quite a few ideas for new projects (as always). Here's the code you need to read a pcf8574 pin:

MacroDuino Webapp Updates

The latest update for the MacroDuino webapp fixes a couple things and adds support to control pcf8574 pins. When I first made the webapp it was more of a proof of concept and didn't really look or function all that great. I'm starting to do a complete UI overhaul to the app and the first change was in the control of outputs.

DIY EC Probe

A DIY EC probe is pretty much essential considering the extremely high cost of buying one. After a bit of experimentation i've found a solution that works extremely well, gives accurate readings and costs less than $15. The video below explains exactly how to build your own.

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