The Final Arduino Kitchen Timer

Kitchen-Timers have a durability which is only slightly bigger than the warranty of the device. It doesn't matter if you buy a cheap one or an expensive. They initiate self-destruction after one year (IKEA, WMF, Zyliss, No-Name... I tried them all) . That's just my personal experience and this is also the reason, why I decided to build my own kitchen-timer.
...and it's name shall be "The FAKT".



I could not find a suitable solution for me on the web, so I have to engineer by myself this time.
Because I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, I choose Arduino as suitable platform. There are enough libraries and documentation and examples available. The board is cheap and very friendly for prototyping.

My requirements for the FAKT are:
- Simple to use with just one rotary-encoder and a LCD-display
- A loud beeping-tone or a melody indicates when the time is expired
- A low power-consumption
- Small dimensions
- Simple to build
- Simple to code. Reuse as much code as possible.
- Cheap hardware

The first firmware-version is working fine, but there are still some open issues. Power-saving should be implemented and my inner-voice told me to switch to an 3.3V-based Arduino-board. I think I will do so. Otherwise I have to destroy my Uno and I don't want to do that. I'm thinking about an Arduino Pro Mini. This will make it also fit in a smaller housing.

The LCD was surprisingly easy to integrate. I used an existing library called DogLcd.
The rotary-encoder is interrupt controlled based on example code from adruino.cc, but I'm still not satisfied with debouncing and step-regognition. Sound is played via two PWM-pins to get a higher volume. This is not optimal and I have to find a different solution, if I switch to 3.3V power-supply.

Arduino Punk Console

Huh! ...being quite busy last month. Now I'm back in "Bastel-Business" with a 8-step tone sequencer called Arduino Punk Console (APC). It's based on a project from Beavis Audio Research and includes a Arduino-Board with an Atmel328 .
On the upper-left is the volume-knob and the 3 knobs in a row are for Duration, Frequency and Tempo of the tone-sequence. The frequency of each step can be set separatly. Just hold one of the step-buttons and adjust the frequency-knob at the same time.
The display(16 digits x 2 lines) from Sparkfun has a serial interface which is very easy to use.

Currently the only problem is, that I have to hold the start/stop-button permanently to hear the sequence. I will fix this in the software soon. There is also a small bug in the wiring-diagram on the homepage : The red-line to the "tempo" potentiometer is missing.

I also left some space for more potentiometers on the right side. A feature-merge of the Auduino would be cool.

Update: I uploaded a video showing the APC in live-action!

My Auduino

Here are the first pictures of my Auduino which I build yesterday immediately after I received my second Duemilanove via snail-mail. I just couldn't wait =)
Its really easy to build. Just adding some potentiometers and an audio-jack and you are done.
The sound is _amazing_. Really! I didn't expect that complexity. I think I will add a MP3 after this weekend.
As you can see, there are some missing knobs. I will get some more of them. The case is very small and compact and you can see the Led flashing on the board, while modifying the sound-parameters.
Here are some more pictures:










Italy inside ;-)

Arduino + Gameboy + MIDI = Arduinoboy !!!

How can you plug your Gameboy to a drummachine?
Can you play your Gameboy with a MIDI-keyboard?
Is it possible to control your Gameboy with a MIDI-software?

The answer is easy: Arduinoboy.

Arduino is a widespread open-hardware platform and there are countless projects around which only need to be downloaded to your Arduino-board. You only have to solder the peripherals you need.
I is late but I'm finished my first Arduino-project.
It took about 6-8 hours of work including housing, soldering and bringing it into service.

Here are the first pictures of my Arduinoboy:
























































At least a picture with the Arduino and my Korg ES1 sampler.