Review of NeoDen 4 Pick and Place Machine with Vision System

From rayshobby.net 6 years ago in Stores

A few years ago I purchased a NeoDen TM-240A desktop pick and place machine, and wrote two blog posts about it. It was one of the most popular desktop pick and place machines on the market back then, and has served me well for the past three years. It does...

Articles from Ray’s Hobby Shop

Learning Electronics: Tips and Tricks for using ESP8266 in my circuit designs

From rayshobby.net 7 months ago in Stores

This post documents some of the tips and tricks I learned while integrating ESP8266 into my own circuit designs. Some of them help reduce the components needed thus minimizing the cost, while others have to do with selecting and using...

Learning Electronics — I/O expander options

From rayshobby.net 7 months ago in Stores

It’s hard to believe that two years have gone by since my last post. Lots of things happened during these two years: on the good side, we have our first baby born during a year of pandemic, and he is...

Off-the-shelf WiFi Weather Station has an ESP8266 at its Core

From rayshobby.net 3 years ago in Stores

Recently I was involved in a project that requires reading data from a personal weather station (PWS) installed at a friend’s backyard. If you search for “personal weather station” you will find plenty of off-the-shelf products manufactured by various companies....

Final Projects from the ‘Make’ Class (290M) Spring 2018 Offering

From rayshobby.net 3 years ago in Stores

Can’t believe I have been silent on this blog for more than a year now. I would really like to get back to blogging more regularly, and hopefully this post serves as a good starting point. As the first order...

An EagleCAD Script for Creating Laser-Cut Project Enclosures

From rayshobby.net 5 years ago in Stores

When designing electronic circuits, often it’s necessary to have a proper enclosure for the project, to protect the circuit board and components, and for aesthetic reasons. There are several options to choose from. For example, if this is a one-off...

How to Switch Gardena 1251 Latching Valve using OpenSprinkler Bee (OSBee)

From rayshobby.net 5 years ago in Stores

Recently when helping a customer, I came across an interesting case of how to control Gardena 1251 latching solenoid valve using OpenSprinkler Bee. This valve is mostly sold in the European market and isn’t very popular in the US market....

Introducing OpenSprinkler Bee 2.0 — a WiFi-enabled Universal Sprinkler Controller

From rayshobby.net 5 years ago in Stores

Today I am very excited to introduce OpenSprinkler Bee (OSBee) 2.0: it’s an open-source, WiFi-enabled, universal sprinkler controller. It is suitable for garden and lawn watering, plant and flower irrigation, hydroponics, and other types of watering project. This is the...

OpenSprinkler Black Friday / Cyber Monday Sales Are On

From rayshobby.net 5 years ago in Stores

A quick note that our Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales are on now: all OpenSprinkler products are shown in discounted prices right now, and the deal only lasts till Monday Nov 28. This is the only time of the...

WiFi-enabled Color LED Matrix using ESP8266 and WS2812 LEDs

From rayshobby.net 6 years ago in Stores

Last Thursday I had a lot of fun doing a workshop at my college where I taught students to use a WiFi-enabled Color LED matrix combined with Javascript programs to create animations displayed onto the LED matrix. The matrix is...

“Alexa, Open Sprinkler Zone 1” — How to Use IFTTT with OpenSprinkler (and OpenGarage)

From rayshobby.net 6 years ago in Stores

I just discovered something exciting recently and want to share with you: it’s now possible to use IFTTT with OpenSprinkler and OpenGarage; and because IFTTT support Amazon Echo (Alexa), you can now speak voice command to trigger sprinkler actions. For...