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...]
NeoPixel Ring (24 Bit) Spindicator/Chase with Arduino
Spindicator means spinning indicator, Apple calls it "spinners". It is a very common animation used to show the loading process progress in many software including Windows 10 and 11. This project only contains the code which will create the animation (which is essentially the chase effect). In this basic guide, we have not shown PWM to control the progress of the indicator. This guide is the … [Read more...]
Arduino: Display Potentiometer Readings on 7 Segment LED Display
There are various practical needs to output the value of a potentiometer on a digit 7-segment display without making it super complicated. Things such as an audio player require a display of the audio control knob by using some sort of logic with this kind of project. In our earlier articles, we have discussed about PWM and control of a line of LED with potentiometer. Both of those articles are … [Read more...]
How Wheel Hub Motor Works
A wheel hub motor is a motor that is installed directly in a wheel of a vehicle and at the same time carries the wheel hub. Most designs are electric wheel hub motors, but there were also internal combustion engines. In the case of electric wheel hub motors, both internal and external rotors are conceivable. In principle, the hub dynamo is similar to the wheel hub motor, an exclusively … [Read more...]
How Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) Works
An analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) is an electronic device whose function is to translate an analogue quantity into a digital value encoded on several bits. The converted signal is usually an electrical voltage. As we have explained before, the GPIO pins of any microcontroller board such as Arduino, ESP32 etc can handle digital input or output only. The analogue pins of Arduino are an … [Read more...]
How to Save Sensor Data from ESP32/Arduino to InfluxDB
There are some databases which are suitable for use with Arduino, ESP32 etc microcontrollers. We can indeed use MySQL (and PHP) to create IoT projects like this one. However that approach requires own API server and such method has limitations. It is a complicated method and presents app and web development moving away from PHP and MySQL/MariaDB. These days it is convenient to use Create React App … [Read more...]
What We Have Learned From Titan Submarine Incident
The 2023 accident of the submersible Titan occurred during a dive into the international waters of the North Atlantic Ocean off Newfoundland, Canada. The Titan is a small submersible for tourism purposes, operated by OceanGate and intended particularly to ensure paid visits to the wreck of the Titanic. On June 18, 2023, it began a descent towards the wreckage during which it suffered an implosion … [Read more...]
Arduino 12 LED Meter (Bar Graph) With Potentiometer for Various Projects
There are various ways to create a LED Meter or Bar Graph with a few square LEDs of three colours and demonstrate the function with a potentiometer. There is nothing new with this idea since official documentation of Arduino already has one example of bar graph. However, not all of them are practical to use with every project. The sensors in real often do not generate a voltage (or PWM signal) as … [Read more...]