Woodworking with power tools creates dust. Lots of it. Hooking a vacuum up to your tool helps greatly, but only if it’s actually running. Annoyed with turning on his vacuum system every time he had to make a cut, Zach Hipps decided to automate the process.

What he came up with uses an ACS712 current sensor to detect when power is flowing to his table saw, and an Arduino Nano for control. When current is sensed, it triggers the vacuum using a relay, then holds it on until five seconds after the device is turned off. 

If I’m going to be able to automatically turn on the shop vac, I need to be able to detect when the tool is turned on and running. Without modifying the tool, the best way to do this is to get a current sensor like the ACS712 which I also got on eBay for a couple of bucks. This sensor can read alternating or direct current up to 20 Amps which is perfect for what I’m going to be using it for. The sensor outputs an analog voltage between 0 and 5 Volts that is proportional to the current it senses. I can read that analog voltage output with one of the ADC pins on the Arduino. Once I sense that the tool is running, I need to be able to turn on the shop vac. For that I’m going to use the relay module. A simple high or low logic signal from one of the Arduino’s digital pins is all that is needed to turn on the relay. 

After I had the two modules soldered to the Arduino, I decided to model and 3D print an enclosure that will secure everything in place. With the enclosure done, I can wire in the AC power receptacles. One receptacle for the tool and one for the shop vac. Having these will make it easy to move this around my garage and plug in various tools. I bought an extension cord to use for this project and cut off about 8 inches of the male end.

Build details are shown below and can also be found in Hipps’ write-up.

turn your arduino into a smart switch to automate tasks in the shop

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The post Automate Your Workshop Dust Collection With An Arduino appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

As previously announced, the Arduino IoT Cloud is an easy to use Internet of Things application platform that enables developers to go from unboxing their board to a working device in just minutes.

To help you get started, we’ve put together a quick project that’ll walk you through connecting a MKR1000 (or MKR WiFi 1010) to the Arduino IoT Cloud.

By the end of the tutorial, you’ll be able to control and monitor your board over the Internet using the Arduino IoT Cloud site.

First, we’ll add the board to the Arduino IoT Cloud as a Thing — a representation of the board in the cloud. We’ll then give the Thing a set of Properties which represent sensors, LEDs, motors, and many other components in the project that you’ll want to access from the cloud.

Want to see more? You can find the entire step-by-step guide here.

Do you enjoy mowing your lawn? No? Well now you can ‘simply’ print a robot to do it for you, based on German mechanical engineer Philip Read’s design. His Roomba-esque device uses a pair of gearmotors for movement, an array of three ultrasonic sensors for obstacle avoidance, and a perimeter wire/sensor to keep it within the designated boundary.

An Arduino Mega is employed as the main processing unit for the robotic mower, however a separate Nano onboard helps measure battery voltage as well as current when charging. Meanwhile, an Arduino Uno along with a motor driver are used to control the perimeter wire setup. 

Extensive build info is available on the project’s write-up, and a short demo can be seen in the video below.

Fully autonomous robot lawn mower. The mower project includes the mower itself a boundary wire control station and an optional charging station.  The mower navigates within the boundary wire which is positioned (pinned) around the perimeter of the garden. Once the mower senses the perimeter wire, it stops reverses and moves off in a new direction. The mower also has 3 sonar sensors to detect objects in the mowers path. Once the mowers battery is exhausted, the mower uses the boundary wire to navigate itself back to the charging station. All this can be customised in the Arduino software or completely re-written to your personal preferences.

Commercial mowers with this specification cost upwards of 600€ ($680).

Obviously, you’ll want to use such a device in an area devoid of kids or pets

Britain is famously known as a land of manners and hospitality. Few situations could make an Englishman’s stiff upper lip quiver, short of running out of tea bags while entertaining house guests. Thankfully, [The Gentleman Maker] is here and living up to his name – with a helpful tea monitor to ensure you’re never caught out again.

The Intelli-T, as it has been dubbed, monitors tea inventory by weight. An Arduino Uno combined with a HX711 IC monitors a load cell mounted under a canister, with a reed switch on the lid. Upon the canister being open and closed, the Arduino takes a measurement, determining whether tea stocks have dipped below critical levels. If the situation is dire, a Raspberry Pi connected over the serial port will sound an urgent warning to the occupants of the home. If there is adequate tea, the Raspberry Pi will instead provide a helpful tea fact to further educate the users about the hallowed beverage.

It’s a fun project, and one that has scope for further features, given the power of the Raspberry Pi. A little more work could arrange automatic ordering of more tea online, or send alerts through a service like IFTTT. We’ve seen [The Gentleman Maker]’s uniquely British hacks before, such as the umbrella that tells you the weather. Video after the break.

While you’ve been hearing about virtual reality for the last 20 years or so, today the hardware required to build such a rig is finally to the point where it’s within the reach of consumers. As seen here, Relativty is a SteamVR-compatible headset that can be made for around $100.

Relativty uses a 3D-printed frame to house its 2560 x 1440 LCD screen, along with a pair of 80mm Fresnel lenses to properly focus the image. Control is accomplished via an Arduino Due and an MPU-6050 accelerometer, which feeds head-tracking info to an external gaming system. 

At this point, the device is clean though fairly basic, and will hopefully be the start of a truly excellent open source project as features are added.

The concept of wearable hardware is an enticing one, but it can be difficult to tackle for the first-time maker. While many of us are experienced at designing PCBs and soldering up arcane gadgets, interfacing with the soft and fleshy human form can present unforeseen difficulties. There’s a way around that, of course – leveraging an existing platform where someone else has already done the work. That’s precisely what [Aaron Christophel] has done, by reverse engineering and developing custom firmware for cheap fitness trackers (Google Translate).

The first part of [Aaron]’s work consisted of research and disassembly. After purchasing a wide variety of fitness trackers online, he eventually came across his favored unit, the Tracker I6HRC by IWOWNFIT. This features an NRF52832 microcontroller, as well as an IPS display, some Flash storage, and a vibration motor. Connectivity is handled over Bluetooth Low Energy. [Aaron] particularly rates it for the well-made case that can be disassembled without damage, and the spare USB 2.0 pads on the board which can be used to program the device over the SWD interface.

[Aaron] has developed an Arduino-compatible firmware which is discussed further in a forum post.  Most of the peripherals on board have been explored, and reducing power consumption is a current area of active development.

Firmware hacks are always fun – have you considered giving your TV a custom boot screen? Have a FitBit original instead of the clone? There’s a hack for that too.

[Thanks to Jim for the tip!]

If you’ve ever seen a MIDI pad with dozens of light-up buttons producing electronic music, you may have considered building one using an Arduino. As shown in GreatScott!’s latest write-up, you can indeed create your own Novation Launchpad-like device using a Nano for control, but the real question is should you?

In the video below, GreatScott! shares how made a 6×6 pad, using a 3D-printed body and buttons arranged in a matrix to save I/O, along with WS2812B LEDs. He also goes over the MIDI protocol, which he was able to implement using loopMIDI and Hairless MIDI to serial bridge for Arduino interface. 

While the DIY option may or may not be right for you, the concepts presented could be applied to a wide range of electronic musical interface projects.

In this episode of DIY or Buy I will be showing you how I created my own Launchpad. That means I will show you how I combined a design idea with 3D prints, WS2812 LEDs, tactile switches and an Arduino to create a proper MIDI instrument. While building I will also tell you a bit about a keyboard matrix and in the end determine what advantages the DIY Launchpad offers. 

YouTuber “Insert Controller Here” has been creating gaming controllers out of a variety of objects, like bananas, mayonnaise, and meat. For his latest iteration, the YouTuber decided to convert a VTech Turn and Learn Driver into—what else?—a Mario Kart: Double Dash steering console.

As seen in the video below, the build consists of disassembling the toy, then soldering wires to the correct points to recreate steering wheel input, braking, and throttle. An Arduino Leonardo is used for the gaming interface, allowing Mario and Luigi to make it around the track by turning the wheel and applying brakes, while the accelerator is simply “shifted” into place.

Sphero's been amusing us with its collection of robotic balls, like its adorable BB-8, for eight years. But lately the company has been getting away from the toy aspect of its products and embracing its educational potential. It's had an app that can be used to program many of its current bots for a while now, but that's only for budding coders — what do kids interested in hardware have to tinker with? Indeed, Sphero is about to release its first robot specifically made to be physically modded, called the RVR.