Tag: Arduino WiFi

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Interfacing ESP8266 WiFi module to Arduino

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ESP8266 WiFi module is very cheap and versatile module for many projects. Module can work as standalone development board or be as interface able WiFI card for other boards as Arduino. As standalone project board it is limited to few I/Os and peripherals, but still can be used for many sensor and control applications. For more flexibility it is better to use more feature rich boards. Electronut decided to give a try for interfacing module to serial interface by using USB to serial adapter and Python script. He had to use 3.3V regulator to drop USB voltage down from 5V then he sent few AT commands that allowed to connect to wireless network fairly easy. In second step he then attached ESP8266 module to Arduino serial interface. For demo application he took temperature readings from LM35 temperature sensor and by using internet connection, plotted data to thingspeak.com.  ESP8266 WiFi module practically cost nothing but gives much more flexibility and accessibility, so why not using one anyway. Continue reading

Programing Arduino over WiFi

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In many situations you would like to program Arduino without any cables. For instance while testing mobile robots, or simply when your board is installed in not convenient position. So why not setting up an inexpensive WiFi connectivity to program Arduino on the run. Oscar have used ESP8266 based WiFi module. He didn’t try to rewrite Arduino bootloader to work especially with WiFi module, but instead he wrote a processor program that listens for specific commands on coming from WiFi module. Once “reboot” command is received, Arduino resets and enters its stk500 bootloader. On PC side there is a Python server running which streams new firmware to chip. After software is uploaded, Program continues normal execution. [translated source] Continue reading

Is this the cheapest way of adding WiFi to Arduino?

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2xod rose a question about efforts put to Arduino have a WiFi connectivity. A good example is I Arduion Yun. Is it fair that WiFi part of it have order of magnitude more processing power than Arduino micro itself. Of course powerful Wifi module gives flexibility and easy user experience. Everything works out of box. But speaking of simplicity, it is logical to expect WiFi part to be simple, cheap. Having this in mind 2xod started looking for cheapest WiFi modules in the market. He found several Chinese variants that cost about 11 bucks. Most of these modules are simple devices that communicate via serial interface. They have many limitations, but for simple use they are perfect. He started experimenting with couple cheap modules – Hi Flying HF-LPT100 and Mediatek MT5931 that are pretty similar. Interfacing these modules to Arduino is easy – just connect power and serial interface wires to Tx and Rx pins and you are set. Once powered – modules can be accessed with default gateway IP. Admin panel allows configuring settings where you can set it… Continue reading

An arduino based Wifi Bodyscale

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For all ya geeky weight watchers out there! Here’s a project that will measure your body weight, connects through wifi and records each result onto google docs – neat isn’t it? The project was built out of an Arduino Uno, a Wifi shield, a Velleman scale (that was ripped open for this project) and an LCD shield to display how much you weight. The Velleman’s load cells are hooked up into the arduino uno’s analog to digital converters through a INA125  chip that is specifically build for load cell  applications like weighting scales. The INA125 sources the precision voltage that is fed into the load cell which acts like a resistor bridge, the differential result would be in a few milivolts thus the INA125  also has an amplifier that amplifies the signals 500 times so that it can be detected by the Arduino Uno’s analog to digital converter. The uno then builds up a packed data using the APP_WISERVER  library to connect with wifi and then google docs for the recording of the weight data. There are some critical steps that need to be… Continue reading

Traffic light with WiFi control

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Travis Brown had a task to build a traffic light for his employer where it would indicate status of operations in headquarters. So he shares the results. This is an Arduino based controller with CopperHead WiFi shield. Lamps are driven using a custom relay board. Traffic light status is accessible from webpage which is created using WiServer Arduino library. Light status is pooled from company’s API which keeps track of servers status. This is a great way of giving visual information and hopefully has effect on productivity. Continue reading

RGB lamp controlled with Arduino WiFi

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It is always fun to control devices over internet. With Arduino and Ethernet or WiFi shields this becomes a piece of cake. Boris Landoni have published his RGB lamp mod where he can control its brightness and color of it from browser. Arduino setup consists of three layers: Arduino Uno, Ethernet shield (or WiFi shield) and custom RGB stripe driver shield on top. LEDs are connected to Arduino PWM channels  and are driven by n channel MOSFETs. Continue reading