Lawn Sprinkler, Mixed Signal Layouts, and New Products

by Nate
September 11, 2009

Pete's lawn needed watering but the sprinkler was throwing half the water onto the street and side walk. With an Arduino, a pot, and a servo controlled value, he was able to control where the sprinkler head delivered water.

I often get asked what it is we do here at SparkFun. I as of yet, do not have a decent answer. But when projects like Pete's come along, they make a great concrete example. What do you do with a microcontroller? That's easy to answer! We use microcontrollers to solve simple problems.

Pete had a problem. His lawn needed watering but the sprinkler was throwing half the water onto the street and side walk. With an Arduino, a pot, and a servo controlled value, he was able to control where the sprinkler head delivered water. A simple problem with an elegant solution. Nice job Pete!

http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/BreakoutBoards/delta-sigma.jpg

We have been playing with high resolution (24-bit) ADCs lately and we came across a great application note written by e2v (if they're making dental x-ray scanners, they must know something). When it comes to mixed mixed signal PCB layouts, proper layout can be tricky. Checkout this great document to find out more about how to layout PCBs to prevent ugly current loops, proper PCB stack-ups, and some notes on proper analog and digital grounding.

http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorial/news/PaulAguayo-M.jpg

MCI Electronics in Chile is our biggest distributor in South America. Paul Aguayo was on vacation with his girlfriend in New York and decided to swing through the SparkFun office in Boulder for a tour and a great exchange of business stories. Paul and I had a great time catching up. I can't wait to return the compliment by traveling to Chile someday.

Always new stuff!

This is a tiny MEMS microphone mounted on a breakout board with 100 gain amplifier.

This is a breakout board for the VS1000D a single-chip Ogg Vorbis (license-free audio codec) player with USB and NAND-FLASH interfaces. This board makes it incredibly easy to add audio to your project. It can be embedded and controlled with just a few GPIO lines! By itself, it is a fully functional Ogg-Vorbis player out-of-the-box. The flash chip has a 256MB capacity, and the board has all the features of a standard audio player. Audio files are added over USB and the playback quality is great! The board can drive headphones or a small speaker with no additional power source.

This is a simple to use USB evaluation board for the GE865-Quad cellular module. All pins of the GE865 are broken out, so you'll have access to the state-of-the-art DAC, ADCs, and GPIOs.

The LPR530AL dual axis gyro has a maximum sensitivity of +/-300 degrees per second and very low power consumption.

This is the micro switch that is used on our concave and convex buttons.

6 pin right angle female header.

Remember the Nintendo Power Glove? This is an awesome project that captures motion using flex sensors, accelerometers, and an Arduino! Great job Noah!