If you’re familiar with Arduino, you’re likely aware of the frequent need to incorporate motors into projects, especially those involving robotics. In a previous tutorial, we discussed using a transistor to control small motors. But what if you find yourself needing to control a larger motor? The solution to this requirement lies in using a MOSFET. As defined by Wikipedia:

A type of field-effect transistor (FET). It has an insulated gate, whose voltage determines the conductivity of the device. This ability to change conductivity with the amount of applied voltage can be used for amplifying or switching electronic signals.

Put simply, a MOSFET is a specific type of transistor that employs a Gate rather than a Base (contrary to the bipolar transistor). Notably, the Gate in a MOSFET is isolated, rendering it considerably safer for use with Arduino. While there is more to the intricacies of MOSFETs, we won’t delve into those details in this session. For our purposes, we’ll be working with the IRF44N MOSFET, a highly economical and widely used field-effect transistor.

Arduino Mosfet

Here is the list of parts we will need for this project:

• 1 x Arduino Uno board
• 1 x IRF44N MOSFET
• 1 x 775 motor (or other)
• 1 x Breadboard
• 1 x jumper wires
• 1 x 12V power supply

You can use any other transistor, check out its pinout and datasheet to ensure that it can be used with the rating needed for this project.

If you have all of the components that we need, you can connect them using the schematic below.

To power this circuit, we need an external power supply of 12V, but a 9V should be ok as well. You can connect it to Arduino with the DC jack.

It is very useful to use cables with crocodile clips to connect jumpers to the motor; they will hold safely and help you avoid soldering.

We can use the analogWrite function to control the motor speed with a PWN signal.

If you use a relay to control your motor, you will not be able to control it with the PWM signal. Relay responses will be too slow for such applications.

The code will increase the motor speed, slow it down, and do that over and over again. Here is the code:

As you can hear, when it is not moving, it makes odd sounds. That’s because of the current that flows through the motor coils.

And here we go! Don’t hesitate to comment below if you need further information about this project.

Feel free to check other projects here.

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The Knight Rider is one of the perfect Arduino projects for beginners. What is Knight Rider? It’s a set of LEDs that blinks one after another, Here is what the official Arduino page says:

We have named this example in memory to a TV-series from the ’80s where the famous David Hasselhoff had an AI machine driving his Pontiac. The car had been augmented with plenty of LEDs in all possible sizes performing flashy effects.

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/KnightRider

So, we will make a blinking set of LEDs. You can find the code to make the Knight Rider on the Arduino page. Here we will attempt to show a simpler and shorter code. I will do a 10 LED version of it.

Let’s start with what we will need for this project, if you bought one of those Arduino starter Kits, you should find each of these components in the box:

• Arduino Uno Board
• 10 x LEDs
• 10 x 200Ω resistors or 220Ω resistors
• Breadboard

This project will particularly help you learn to use LEDs with Arduino and how to use for loops.

The first thing we have to do is connect everything together, below is a schematic with all the connections. I used 220Ω resistors but 200Ω resistors can work for this project as well.

Some people say you don’t need to use a resistor when connecting LED to Arduino, but that is not true. You always have to use a resistor when connecting LED to Arduino otherwise you can damage your Arduino and LEDs. So remember this: Whenever there is an LED, there must be a resistor.

Put the negative leg (shorter one) of the LED in the negative bar of the breadboard and the positive leg in the breadboard row. then connect the resistor to the LED and the resistor with the Arduino using a male-male jumper wire. Do the same for all 10 LEDs. Don’t forget about Connecting the negative bar to GND of the Arduino.

Now we can upload a program. Just keep in mind that when you want to upload the program, you have to disconnect jumper wires from pins 0 and 1 because they are shared with the UART communication pins RX and TX. It is impossible to upload a program on the board when LEDs are plugged into these pins.

After uploading, you should see the Knight Rider come to life. You can change its speed at the beginning of the code by changing the time_between_blinks value. You can also try to add more LEDs or change the code to make it more yours. For example, you can try to turn on 2 or 3 LEDs at once instead of just one.

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Today, we are going to build a DIY metal detector with the help of these devices which will help make the process easy and fun. The end product, the metal detector itself once built can help you find metallic stuff under the ground, who knows what might just be buried there waiting for you!

Here are the items included in the Box:

There are components like transistors and resistors which can look identical though there are not.

Fortunately enough, everything is labeled on the PCB. We should not have any issue with the assembly of this kit.

Let’s start with all of the capacitors, those are of orange, big black, and green color. Make sure that polarities of the biggest black capacitor match with PCB.

Solder everything and cut out the legs of each component.

Now we have to put the two resistors in place, each of them has a different value one is 2.2k and the other is 220k. You can measure that with a multimeter. If you don’t have a multimeter make sure that it looks the same as on the image below. (You can learn how to use a multimeter here)

Solder everything and cut off the legs of both resistors.

Now we have three transistors. They are different from one another, we have a 9018, 9015 and 9012. There are labels on the PCB with exactly the same way. Simply put them in their proper place on the board.

In the end, we can solder the potentiometer, buzzer, and 2 cables.

Make sure that the positive pin of the buzzer is where there is + on the PCB. The holes for power cables are labeled with + and -.

And here you go!

To power it up, you can use anything in the range of 3 to 5V. I am using my adjustable power supply with the voltage adjusted to 4V.

You can also use normal AA or AAA batteries and use it remotely to find some treasures outside if you are into this kind of thing.

We worked on creating a decibel meter using the Arduino board here and how to assemble an audio level indicator. This one is a simple and perfect electronic project for beginners.

Let’s put this voice control LED board together so the LEDs blink every time noise is detected.

Let’s get started.

Here are the elements contained in the set.

Apart from the part shown in the image above, we will need a soldering iron and a solder.

The 3 resistors here have different values. To find out which one is which, remember you can use a multimeter if you have one or simply identify them using the image below.

Every component and its value is labeled on the PCB. Simply make sure to put them in right places. Resistors are the smallest element here,  let’s start by soldering them to PCB.

Solder them and cut out the legs with cutters, do the same to rest of the components if needed.

Then we can solder the transistors and capacitors.

Each of the capacitors has different value but you can find the value on the side of it. It’s important to remember about the polarities when connecting electrolytic capacitors as well as transistors. Make sure to connect them the right way.

There are the 5 LED’s we need to solder to the PCB.

Now, the part that will help sense music – a microphone.

The positive pin is not labeled on the microphone but we can easily recognize it.

The negative pin of the microphone is connected to its case.

As you can see in the image below + is the left leg and – is the right leg of the microphone.

Put it in place, solder and cut out legs.

At the end just solder the connector we will use to connect power to the board.

Here is the bottom side of PCB.

To power this project, I used my lab bench power supply that I set to 3V, that’s the voltage that should be supplied to the board to make it work.

Here is how the whole works.

There are a lot of tools that are useful in an electronics workshop, some are basic ones such as power supplies and multimeters but at some point, you will need more advanced tools like an oscilloscope or a function generator.

Those are quite expensive but fortunately. That is why today, we are going to build a cheap DIY square wave generator that in some case can replace an oscilloscope.

This is a very simple project making it perfect for beginners.

Square wave generator

These are the parts included in the kit.

Before we start with soldering, let’s remove the protective foil from the parts forming the case.

There is an instruction leaflet in the box that helps find important information. This is of help while identifying the components and their values.

As always, we start with placing the smallest components and soldering them to the board.

I will start with capacitors, make sure that all of the values are correct, each capacitor has its value different from the others.

After soldering all components, if their legs are too long cut them out.

After the capacitors, we can place the resistors in their appropriate position. On the leaflet, you can find where to put each resistor having as reference their value. Remember you can use your multimeter to find the resistance values of the resistors.

Solder them and cut out the legs.

Let’s solder the break out headers and the IC support.

To power it, we will use a standard DC jack, solder that together with a screw terminal that let us connect cables to generate our output signal.

The last 3 parts to solder are the potentiometers. One of them is different so make sure to put it in right place.

After soldering, we can plug the IC in.

The last part is to build the case.

As you can see it’s quite small so it wouldn’t take lots of space on your desk. You can power it with a voltage in the range of 9-12V.

Let’s revive our old friend the fidget spinner!. It won’t be a bad idea if we decide to add a few LEDs to a fidget spinner shape printed board.

Here is the list of all component we are going to use in this DIY project.

This kit comes with clear instructions on how to put the parts together.

First, we will solder both integrated circuits, there is a mark on the PCB and on the package of those IC. Make sure that those two line up together.

There is a place for three resistors next to both ICs. Let’s put it in place. Those should be labeled 201.

Between the IC and resistors, we will solder all of the LEDs. Make sure that the green labels on each LED match the vertical line next to LED pad on the PCB.

On the third arm of the PCB, we have to solder one resistor and a button.

Rotate the PCB and put the battery holders in place.

Turn the PCB upside down and solder all them. That’s the last thing to solder.

Now we can take off the protective foil from all of the acrylic parts.

And we can assemble the frame of our spinner. For that, we have to use the acrylic parts and few screws. The whole assembly process is well explained in the instruction manual.

And there you go!

That was a quick one, but that thing can sit on your office table making you proud of your accomplishment everytime you look at it.

These days everyone wants faster internet, but copper wires reached their limit so we are using something better than copper. That’s fiber! In this simple DIY project you will see how light travels through a fiber cable. There are just 4 connections to be soldered in this project making it friendly and perfect for beginners.

Here are the components included in this kit.

Let’s now start building.

We will start with soldering the 2 cables to the LED. Solder the red cable to the longer leg of the LED and the blue cable to the shorter one.

We have to solder the LED to the battery holder. Make sure to solder the red cable to the positive of the battery holder and the blue cable to the negative as I mentioned in the previous step.

And that’s the end of soldering for today.

Let’s construct the frame.

We have to connect those together with pieces of a double-sided tape to create the object in the image below.

Make sure that the hole is on the top. Put a pin in the hole.

Grab the orange tube and put the fiber cables in it from the top side and then insert the LED from the bottom. Push that tube on the pin, be careful to not damage the LED.

And here we go!

Here comes on of the more exciting and useful DIY project of this year: An oscilloscope.

Before we start working on this project, I would also like to state that this is the best way to own your first oscilloscope and to start enjoying the power of having one. A professional oscilloscope will cost around $300 but you can get this kit for less than $15 and this will serve you well for all your education project and prepare you to know what to do when you start working with a pro oscilloscope if your future ever goes that direction.

There are lots of components to solder in this project. I believe that is the most complex project we have done on the site so far, so, if you are on your first project, I will suggest starting from one of our other projects and coming back to this one later on.

Here is what is in the box:

As said earlier, there are lots of components here.

On the picture above, you can see that there are some small SMD components that are already soldered on the board so you don’t have to deal with super small and hard to solder components, that’s a very good thing!

You can also find very good instruction in the kit, everything is well explained. A Schematic and troubleshooting guide are included too. There is a step by step guide on the soldering order of component on the board.

I did it slightly differently.

Let’s start with resistors. there are lots of them and you will need a multimeter to measure their values so you know where which one of them goes on the board.

To solder, you can use schematic, find a resistor labeled as R1 check its value and put this resistor on the PCB where R1 is labeled. You can also use the table with resistor values. There is also one mistake on the schematic. R11 is labeled as 150 Ohms but you should solder a 1.5K Ohm resistor there.

My advice is to not solder all of the resistors at once, put one in place, solder it, cut the leads off before moving to the next one.

After the resistors, I soldered all of the capacitors, that’s what I usually do. Make sure to not mess up the values there and double check the polarities of the electrolytic capacitors.

Now, we can solder the 8mhz crystal, the buttons, and the USB socket. Make sure to solder those pins on the side of the USB socket, those are there to hold it in place strongly when you connect or disconnect the cable.

It’s time to solder the transistors, the regulators, and the trimmers. Transistor and regulators look almost exactly the same, the only way to distinguish them is by the name written of their packages.

Now, we need to solder some connectors and switches to the main board and connectors to the LCD. You should also solder one of the leads that you cut to J2 connector so that later we are able to test our oscilloscope.

Once everything is ready, put LCD on the top of the main PCB.

To test it, we have to power it with 9V and connect the red clip to J2 and leave the black clip unconnected. Power it and you should see square wave on the screen.

And that’s it for this project.

We have had a blast completing this project last time using the Arduino board. Today, This DIY kit will help us achieve the same result in a completely different way.

Here is a small volume meter for us to play with today.

Besides the parts, you will also need these tools:

• A Soldering iron
• A Tin
• A Vase
• Tweezers
• A wire cutter

Here is what you can find in the kit:

• LEDs
• A PCB
• Capacitors
• Resistors
• KA2284 module
• Cables
• Connectors
• A Potentiometer

Turn on your soldering iron, and let it heat up.

Here is our PCB (Printed Circuit Board)

Everything is perfectly labeled on the board. There are even values for the components.

The first components that we will put in place are capacitors and resistors because they are the smallest.

Be careful connecting the capacitors since we have both of them with different values and double check their capacity before connecting.

To make soldering simpler you can put your PCB upside down in a vise.

Gently solder all of the legs, and when you are satisfied, cut out the legs of the components.

Put KA2284 in place and make sure that the bevel on its size matches the sign on the PCB.

Before soldering it, let’s put all of the LEDs on on the board. Remember that the longer leg of the LED is the + and shorter is the -. As you can see last, the LED is labeled as Red.

Solder, cut out longer legs of the components.

There are the last 3 components we need to solder: the potentiometer and two connectors for power and signal input.

You will also need to add a jack plug to connect it to your phone or some kind of music device.

The other socket is used for power input. You can use voltages between 3.5V up to 12V.

Hope it worked. Enjoy!

This DIY project is a bit similar to the DIY audio level indicator we’ve worked on in the past.

Today’s LED project brings a considerable number of electronic parts to solder as compared to what we’ve got in previous posts but will also help you improve not only your soldering skill but also the ability to efficiently use a multimeter.

This is a very simple and effective project that uses one of the most popular integrated circuits in the world: the 555 timer! It blinks with two different colors and let you control the blinking frequency.

Let’s start with unboxing the kit, shall we?

As you can see there are lots of LEDs in this project and some other small components.

All our resistors don’t have the same value. Using a multimeter will make more sense here to quickly find the value of each resistor.

On the PCB, everything is properly described for you to know where to put each of the resistors.

We will also need the following tools:

• A Soldering iron
• A Tin
• A Vase
• Tweezers
• A wire cutter

This project’s PCB (Printed Circuit Board) is well made, with solid solder mask on the bottom side. It is single sided, on the top layer, there are just labels and values of the components.

As always let’s start with small components: resistors and diodes. Before soldering, make sure that you’ve placed components as on the image below.

When you are sure that everything is fine, you can start soldering. It is very useful to use a vice to hold the PCB in place.

When everything is done, you can use a wire cutter to trim legs of the components we’ve just soldered.

Small components done! it’s time for bigger parts like capacitors and transistors. See labels on the PCB to know how to place them.

Here is my result after soldering them.

Now, let’s add two integrated circuits and the potentiometer. While soldering the IC’s try to not heat them too much, high temperature can damage them. Try not to hold the soldering iron too long on the pins.

And the last 24 parts are LEDs, white and red ones. Check the polarity and put them as they are labeled on the PCB.

The best way that worked for me was placing them face down on the table and carefully soldering while making sure they remained straight.

It will be smart to solder LEDs that are located on the side first, cutting their legs as you go to create more room to solder LEDs that are located in the center.

Do the same for the other side.

In the end, I soldered the small header with 2 pins, the one that will allow power input to the board.

And here is how it looks when you are done.

You can easily control the frequency of blinking with the potentiometer.