40 cent DIY pressure sensor based on a capacitive principle 25

40 cent DIY pressure sensor based on a capacitive principle
Lately I am spending a lot of time working on Fochica. Fochica is a system that alerts parents if they unknowingly leave a child in a car. The Fochica device is Arduino-based, installed in a vehicle and communicates with the parents’ smartphones via Bluetooth. Fochica is a finalist in the Hackaday Prize 2017 competition and ...

Fochica™ – Forgotten Child in Car Alert

Fochica™ – Forgotten Child in Car Alert
Over the last 12 months I have been working on an interesting project with an important mission: to prevent forgetting children in vehicles. Kids who are left alone in cars are likely to suffer a heat stroke, often with grave consequences. Naturally, this is a bigger concern in hot countries, such as Israel, where I ...

Fixing a bad STATE pin on an MLT-BT05 BLE module 22

Fixing a bad STATE pin on an MLT-BT05 BLE module
This is a follow up article to the detailed review of the MLT-BT05 BLE module. In that previous post I mentioned that I got some MLT-BT05 modules with their STATE pin floating. No working STATE pin was an issue for me and I decided to investigate the cause. Update: same issue was observed with Bolutek ...

Efficient DC 12V to 5V conversion for low-power electronics, evaluation of six modules 33

Efficient DC 12V to 5V conversion for low-power electronics, evaluation of six modules
I am currently working on a vehicle-installed Arduino project. The device is designed to be powered constantly and I decided to use the car battery as the constant power source. I am designing the device for low power consumption, consuming 50mA or less, ’cause who wants to get stuck with a flat battery, right? Car ...

MLT-BT05 BLE module – a clone of a clone?? 147

MLT-BT05 BLE module - a clone of a clone??
Previously I covered the HM-10 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) module and its clone, the CC41-A.  Those are two popular modules that allow simple BLE communication through a serial interface and are handy with Arduinos and other hobby micro controllers. Make sure you read that article first as it provides important background for this curious update. ...