Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Weekend Projects – Data Dial Dashboard”.
Hello, I’m Sam Freeman, with make in today’s weekend project we’ll have some fun displaying various bits of data scoured from the internet in a project called the data dial dashboard written by Matt Tubbs. This project brings back the fun of old school analog dial gauges, while updating them with Internet connectivity. In this project we will use an Arduino, Ethernet shield and three servos to create a system for tracking global earthquake activity. With a little hacking, you can easily adapt the project to track your unanswered email count. The speed of your internet connection, the price of rice and Rhode, Island or any other data. You can scrape up the seedy underbelly of the Internet.
You’Ll need an afternoon basic, soldering and coding skills and the following parts: to complete this build head over to your local Radio. Shack where you can pick up all the electronics components needed for this build you’ll also need the following tools: we’ll start by building the case. You can download the template for the case from the link on the project page.
If you have access to a laser cutter, go ahead and fire it up and cut out the parts otherwise protect. The paper templates tape them to our balsa wood and cut around them. With a sharp utility knife using your paintbrush apply glue to the joints, starting with the holes in the side, walls and the tabs on the bottom brace glue. The sidewalls to the bottom brace then glue the front bezel in place.
Use a damp paper towel to clean off any excess glue that has been pressed out of the joints, apply glue to the back of the spacers and press them onto the back side of the front. Bezel make sure to line up the holes in the bezel and the spacers check to make sure all the joints are tight then set the case aside for 24 hours to allow the glue to fully cure the Ethernet shield has two five pins, but for this project We’Ll need three so we’ll make our own custom Y cable to split one of the five volt pins into two start by using a razor blade to split the installation through the female connector on one of your jumper wires and peel. It back clip off the female connector from a second jumper wire and set the insulation from the end wrap the stripped wire around the exposed female header near the crimp part of the connector and solder it in place insulate this connection with a small piece of electrical Tape or heat shrink, tubing, break 1/4 pin and to three pin sections off the male header pin strip solder.
The two three pin strip headers right next to each other into the two sets of adjacent holes that correspond to the Arduino ground, ground and 5 volt connections. Solder, the four pin strip header to the holes on the Ethernet shield that corresponds to digital pins, four, five, six and seven. Once all the pins are soldered install the Ethernet shield onto the Arduino, making sure all the pins line up properly. Now we can weigh it all up start by connecting your special Y jumper wire to one of the five volt pins splitting it into two outputs and then adding jumper wires to the other five volts in three of the ground: pins and digital pins. Five, six and seven next we’ll connect the servos plug in a ground jumper wire to each of the brown leaves of the three servo connectors connect, a five volt jumper to the red lead on each servo.
Finally, connect the signal wires, plug in pin 5 to the first servos yellow, lead, pin six to the second servos, yellow, bead and pin seven to the third servos yellow lead now just press fit the servos into the holes in the case and you’re almost done print. The dial faces and indicate our hands into rigid, cardstock and cut out each shape or use a laser cutter to cut and etch your dials and hands. Then rubber cement. The dial faces over the holes in the front bezel as shown next glue and indicator hands to each servo armed with rubber cement, be careful to closely align the hand with the servo arms centerline, connect your Arduino to your computer and open the servo calibration sketch upload.
It to the arduino and the servo shaft should sweep and then stop at their zero positions. Now attach the servo arms to the servo shaft try to get the pointer on each as close to its dials zero position as possible connect the data dial dashboard to your local network with an Ethernet cable. Now you can upload the modified code and sit back and watch as the dials begin reading out earthquake activity from all over the world. You may need to adjust the servo zero position from the sketch to align them with your dials.
You can find more information about this process and other tips and tricks, and the project page the day to dial dashboard can be customized to display almost any data that you can find on. The intranet. Try, tracking your social media steps likes and dislikes on youtube, or the number of comments on your blog each day and as always, if you have questions feedback or a build, you want to share. Please drop us a comment or email.
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