tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65848711291608750872011-11-02T22:08:27.139-07:00open source software and electronicsAndrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.comBlogger91100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-71140487287571497852011-10-01T22:38:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:32:41.889-07:00

I had been thinking about doing a garage door controller project for years, but never found the time to work on it.  On occasion I have forgotten to close my garage door at night, and worry about items disappearing.  It wasn't until after hearing about an expensive bike that was stolen from a neighbor's garage that I decided to make it happen. Initially I just wanted a system to send

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-46103887006847794572009-11-21T13:58:00.001-08:002009-12-03T20:07:08.347-08:00

This is an AIM instant messenger client for Arduino/Wiznet 5100, which allows you to communicate with your Arduino project from anywhere on the internet, in near real-time. You can communicate with your project through any AIM client or even your cell phone by using text messaging with Mobile AIM, and since communication is channeled though the AIM server, both the Arduino+Wiznet and chat client

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-75406493728949693122009-09-12T11:37:00.000-07:002011-07-07T20:22:51.869-07:00

Droplet requires a Java service to listen for requests from remote Droplets and run background threads for push services. At first I used my notebook to run the service, but it wasn't very convenient since it tended to not stay put, or powered on for very long. Around this time I received a SheevaPlug, after a 1.5 month wait. The SheevaPlug is a low power, compact, ARM based Linux computer

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-37160525348008900062009-08-07T05:30:00.001-07:002009-11-22T14:24:45.430-08:00

Several months ago I released XBeeArduinoService. Since then I have been working on the next version. It's now available and has a new name: Droplet.What's NewMenu/Navigation: The first version relied on a dedicated button for each service. This worked but doesn't scale well since you will quickly run out of buttons. Now it uses a menu to display the available services. Along with the menu are

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-31288914245895676842009-06-22T20:47:00.000-07:002009-09-14T07:56:11.799-07:00

I bought a PIR motion detector from SparkFun a while back. I played around with it a bit, and it works great (at 9V, not 5V), but being hardwired had its limitations. So recently I started a project to make the motion detector wireless, with an XBee radio, and send motion events over Google Talk. This allows you to easily monitor motion events while at work or away.As for ideas on what to use

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-62724973439710487602009-05-08T09:48:00.000-07:002009-08-07T08:10:52.593-07:00

This is an Arduino based wireless device that can display arbitrary content (weather, news etc) at the touch of a button, via an XBee radio. Currently it supports weather by zip code and displays on a 4x20 LCD, but it's designed to easily expand to additional services. Some ideas for other services include: calendar events, traffic, next bus/train, tweets, news, mail, adjust thermostat, next

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-74334127418904387972009-02-22T13:26:00.000-08:002009-03-18T08:09:52.730-07:00

While developing the XBee-API 0.5 release, I upgraded my series 2 (ZNet 2.5) radios to ZB (ZigBee PRO) firmware by following the Digi conversion instructionsI was able to perform the firmware flash for both radios: "API coordinator (1941)" and "API End Device (2941)", but when I attempted to read the End Device using X-CTU, I got the following error:"Failed to enter command modeUnable to read

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-42251735545852887692009-02-21T10:17:00.000-08:002009-02-22T09:38:21.873-08:00

I had been kicking this idea around since early last year but progress was slow until recently. So what happens when we have stretches of frigid, bleak weather? I end up coding, a lot. The end result is XBee-XMPP, which I released a few weeks ago on Google Code.This project builds on XBee-API and provides a solution to talk to your XBee network from anywhere on the internet, using XMPP. Now

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6584871129160875087.post-4433284543405323632009-01-18T19:44:00.000-08:002009-08-05T13:22:16.305-07:00

After experimenting with an RGB LED for a while, I became interested in the idea of using a color gradient to control the LED. I search around a bit for a color gradiant library and finally settled on colorpicker, a subproject of colorchooser (scroll down the page for colorpicker). This library is surprisingly easy to integrate with and allows you to receive color events in real-time, as you

Andrew Rapphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13820407551032230009noreply@blogger.com8