A photoresistor, also known as a photoresistor or LDR, is a light-sensitive electrical resistor. The more light falls on the photoresistor, the smaller its resistance becomes. Compared to other light-sensitive electronic components such as photodiodes, photoresistors react very slowly. A thin layer of the photosensitive semiconductor material is applied to a ceramic substrate by sintering a … [Read more...]
ESP32 Neopixel Ring Clock
Previously we have published a few articles on Neopixel Ring, such as spindicator/chase effect with NeoPixel ring. Also, we have published one article on Get Time & Date From NTP Server (you can read about NTP server here). If you combine these two principles, you can build a simple clock based around an ESP32 Arduino to fetch time from an NTP server and a Neopixel Ring to display hours, … [Read more...]
Arduino NeoPixel Ring VU Meter (USB-to-Serial)
For this tutorial, we will need to send live data over USB to the microcontroller. On paper, you can send data between ESP32 and a computer through USB but in real life, people often face problems with ESP32. CP2102 USB to UART Bridge provides a complete plug-and-play interface solution: [crayon-69e47a0cdd51d186905643/] The failproof way is to use Adafruit Metro Mini as a microcontroller … [Read more...]
Analog Circuit Basics (for Arduino)
While working with Arduino, and Raspberry Pi we often face components which work in the analog principle. For example an LDR or a thermistor or laser TOF sensor operates as analogue electrical circuits. Analog electronics is the part of electronics that exploits signals that can operate or be measured by continuous values. Analog electronics are complementary to digital electronics, which … [Read more...]
Dimming AC Powered LED with Arduino
This guide contains instructions which involve handling 110/220V AC main supply which may create electric shock and death. Children and novices are suggested not to try this guide without monitoring by an expert. The AC light dimmer for Arduino is a type of modules which allow to vary the power of an alternating current. It has the same use as a transistor in direct current. It can be used to vary … [Read more...]
Arduino Releases Nano ESP32
So far we used to use Espressif’s ESP32 microcontroller as a generic DOIT ESP32 DEVKIT or LOLIN D32 Pro or HUZZAH32 or similar board with Arduino IDE (to use Arduino compatible sketches). Now, Arduino has officially released a version of Arduino Nano which uses Espressif’s ESP32 microcontroller. This is powered by the ESP32-S3 (as Ublox NORA-W106-10B), the Nano ESP32 featuring: 8 MB internal … [Read more...]
Weather Forecasting : Basics for Arduino
Weather forecasting aims to predict the state of the atmosphere at a certain time in a certain place or area. This does not only mean weather phenomena that affect the ground but the entire earth's atmosphere is considered. A weather forecast is a forecast over a longer period, i.e. over several days or even months, up to an entire season. The possibility of such forecasts is currently still very … [Read more...]
Basics of BJT Transistor
In our previously published articles, we have discussed about MOSFET and Darlington Transistor. These three articles including this one are important for Arduino users with a lesser idea about these semi-conductors. Our target is to distribute the basic knowledge so that they decide and purchase the correct type of transistor. The discovery of the BJT transistor made it possible to effectively … [Read more...]
How a MOSFET Works
In our previous article on Darlington Transistor, we have explained the classification of transistors. The operating principle of MOSFETs is about 20 years older than that of the BJT transistor. An isolated gate field-effect transistor more commonly known as MOSFET (which stands for metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor). It is a type of field-effect transistor (FET). Like all … [Read more...]
What is a Darlington Transistor (Such as TIP120)?
Often it is observed that TIP120 is used in some circuits created with Arduino UNO or ESP32. It is a Darlington pair (it is a transistor). In many circuits, we can either use a transistor or a MOSFET. For example, in our previous guide, 5050 LED Strip with Arduino, we have mentioned that we can use either transistors or MOSFET. The sentences are not fully correct - a MOSFET is also a transistor. … [Read more...]
5050 LED Strip with Arduino/ESP32
5050 LED Strips are cheap LED strips which resemble costlier Neopixel strips but the LEDs in 5050 LED Strips are not individually addressable. That means you can use the animations as one coloured LED at one time. You can run the common old animations such as change of colour, dimming effect etc. But we can not run tricky animations such as chase. 5050 LED Strips are a good choice for interior … [Read more...]