For those of you who are into electronics (or want to be), here are a couple of kits that we’ve recently put together.

The Chronulator

The Chronulator is a clock kit with a neat twist. It shows the hours and minutes on two analog panel meters. It’s a pretty simple kit, with a short parts list (a handful of resistors, a microcontroller [socketed], some jacks, etc). Probably the hardest part is soldering the power jack; those little buggers can be a pain. It’s a kit that you’ll easily be able to put together in an evening. You should know how to solder, but it’s not a tough job. 

The Chronulator : As Customized by Jeffrey Schrab

More time will be spent figuring out an enclosure for the clock (it doesn’t come with one). Not having an included enclosure is a good thing, as it allows you to mount your clock into all sorts of interesting configurations. (The meters can be attached directly to the printed circuit board, or wired apart from it.) The downside is that since these are analog meters, they are big. The 3″ x 2.5″ displays are nice, but the 2 1/2″ depth makes them harder to fit into small boxes. I’ll post photos once we have ours in an enclosure. (In the above version, the builder changed the labels to Volts and Amps; pretty neat. The included meters show mA.)

If you’d like to learn more, check out The Chronulator Site at ShareBrained. You can buy it as a complete kit, a partial kit (no meters), or fully assembled (you still need to put it in an enclosure, or not).

The Magic Box

I put together this kit while Evelyn was adventuring in the Galapagos. It’s an interesting magic kit. Here’s how it works:

While looking away, you have someone choose one of the pawns from the box. They then close and lock the box and return it to you. Magically, you are able to determine which pawn was removed. You can do this with your eyes open or closed. It’s a pretty neat effect.

I like this kit because it really has an old-world “magical” feel about it. There are no visible electronics at all–not even a visible power switch or battery compartment. That adds to the mystery. Here’s a photo of the complete kit:

As you can see, this is not only an electronics kit, but also requires a bit of woodworking. The wooden assembly part of the kit is pretty easy, requiring just a small hammer and a small screwdriver. The electronics assembly is a bit more complicated. First off, I’d recommend purchasing a set of DIP sockets. There are a number of IC chips, and it’s easier and less stressful to install sockets and then plug the chips in. (You don’t have to worry about overheating the IC). Second, you need to be very careful when installing some of the components, as they need to be installed on the opposite side of the PCB, are very fragile, have to be bent, and have very tight lead spacings. It’s not as difficult as trying to solder surface mount components, but you do need to take your time and be careful, as the alignment of those components is important. 

If you are interesting in learning more about this kit, you can find it here: Nuts & Volts Magic Box Kit. You can also check out the April and May 2007 issues of Nuts & Volts for an article describing the project. (A copy of which is included with the kit, along with a CD-ROM which contains additional assembly details. Be sure to read through the instructions carefully. This is a moderately difficult kit, and should only be attempted by those comfortable with soldering and more advanced assembly.)

MiniPOV3

If you are just getting started with electronics, and want an easy and fun project, take a look at the MiniPOV3 Kit from Adafruit. POV stands for “persistence of vision”. It’s the concept that the human eye can only notice changes to a certain point (the retina of your eye “retains” an image for a brief period of time even after the image is gone). If a light goes on or off faster than about 16 times a second, the human eye sees the light as being continuously on. It’s a cool effect and is used all over the place. Things like televisions, LED clocks, computer monitors, and movies all use POV to trick the eye into seeing movement or continuous light. 

Here’s what you get with the kit:

As you can see, it has a pretty basic parts list. Some LEDs, resistors, diodes, a nice PCB, the microcontroller (with socket–thank you), and the battery holder. This is an ideal starter kit and here is why: Limor’s Instructions. Her instructions are some of the best I’ve seen on the web. She tells you exactly what tools you’ll need, how to solder it, how it works, and so on. She uses a lot of pictures and it’s very clear how to put the kit together. All in all, it’s an excellent first or second kit for someone who wants to do more soldering and have a neat project when they are done. The end result being something that will do this:

What’s also cool is that this project uses an Atmel microcontroller, so you can re-program it! You can program in whatever message you like, or use the default one. Hook it up to the computer, follow the instructions, and you’re all set. It takes a little work to do this, but the added bonus is that you get to learn about programming microcontrollers.

Besides this kit, Adafruit Industries also has a couple of other interesting products, such as the Arduino, iPod Power Boosters, MIDI controllers, and so on. One of her best products, which I highly recommend, is the BoArduino. It’s an Arduino clone, designed to plug right into a solderless breadboard. It makes prototyping Atmel projects far easier, as you have a lot less wiring all over the place (versus using a regular Arduino development board). I bought about five of these just so I have enough to mess around with. The downside is that it doesn’t have the USB chip, so it can’t be plugged directly into your computer. However, a $20 cable solves that problem (you can buy them together at a discount). If you are into Arduino work, check out the BoArduino–it is perfect for prototyping.