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At Freetronics we always love to see the amazing projects our customers create using our products. A few months ago we provided LOVOT LAB’s with a bunch of our N-MOSFET modules. We later found out that the modules were used to easily switch on and off a number of large, high powered LEDs for an art installation named “GRID I”. If this wasn't exciting enough, this project was located in South Korea!

Fortunately, LOVOT LAB’s got back to us with some pictures and videos of the installation, the results are certainly spectacular! Don’t forget to checkout LOVOT LAB’s website to see more of the cool projects they have been working on.

Our Addressable Triple N-MOSFET driver / output module allow you to drive lots of different high powered loads using a single Arduino data pin. Effectively, our Addressable MOSFETs provide the same functionality as found in more common addressable LEDs such as our FreePixel, but can be used to drive any load you wish, not just an RGB LED. To find out more or to order visit the product page.

To keep up to date with the latest news, projects, product announcements  and to let us know what you think of this project showcase follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Using a Clipsal Cent-A-Meter you can effectively monitor the power usage of different appliances. This is great, however the built in functionality can be rather limiting. You can not, for example track the power consumption of a device over time. Thankfully, combining this meter with Arduino can allow you to reach the power meters full potential!  Specifically, a 433MHz receiver can provide a communication bridge between the power monitoring system and an Ethernet connected Arduino allowing the power meter’s data to be sent into a SQL database for analysis and tracking. To find out more about this hack checkout the following link.   

If you're looking to work with your own RF wireless hardware, but don't want to make your own receiver circuit - check out our range of  315/433 MHz receiver shields:

Apart from being idea for working with the various low-cost data links on the market, the shield can also be used to capture wireless weather station data, as described in the book "Practical Arduino". For more information and ideas, check out the product page.

To keep up to date with the latest news, projects, product announcements  and to let us know what you think of this project follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Instructables member blakebevin has create her own Power Laces! The concept is quite simple, a force sensor detects when your foot is firmly in the shoe and two servo motors apply tension to the laces, tightening the laces. To find out more about this awesome project check out the following link or the video of the shoe in action below.

When you use motors in your Arduino project you will almost certainly need a H-Bridge motor driver. A H-Bridge allows you to easily control the direction of your motors from within your code. Our own Dual Channel H-Bridge Motor Driver Shield is a perfect solution to this problem, allowing you to drive two DC motors or a stepper motor.

The Dual Channel H-Bridge Motor Driver Shield features PWM control, selectable current limits and a prototyping area to add your own parts. To find out more check out the Dual Channel H-Bridge Motor Driver Shield page.

To keep up to date with the latest news, projects, product announcements and to let us know what you think of this project follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

YouTuber Jaidyn Edwards has created a 3D printed two legged robot. If this wasn’t cool enough, the brain of this robot is the Freetronics LeoStick. Jaidyn’s robot is based of “BOB” an easy to make robot designed by Thingsverse user k120189.

You can find full instructions on how to make the robot at the following link, and a video of Jaidyn’s robot in action below!

So what is a LeoStick? It's the Arduino Leonardo-compatible board that's cheaper and smaller than the original:

Although the popular Guitar Hero console game is already pretty cool, instructables member oswaldonfire has stayed true to his name by modifying his Guitar Hero game so that a set of flamethrowers is triggered with each in game button press. The result is nothing short of spectacular!

The project is entirely controlled by an Arduino Uno and a number of relays which trigger the flamethrowers. If you want to find out more about how you can build this awesome project yourself checkout the following link or the video (the action starts at around 10 seconds) of the setup in action!

If you are thinking about getting started with Arduino, but don’t know where to get started, our Experimenter’s Kit is a great way to learn the basics.

The kit includes a wide range of parts including a servo, sensors, lights, buttons, a sound module and more. Importantly, a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to ensure that the kit contains everything you need to get started with Arduino. All these great parts would be useless without some form of instructions which is why we have developed a comprehensive project and instruction booklet to get you started. Check out the product page to find out more.

Working on a cool project you think we should know about? Inspired to start making your own Flamethrower Edition of Guitar Hero? Let us know in the comments section below or on Facebook and Twitter.  

One of the relatively unknown capabilities of Arduino-compatible boards is that they can be used as an external programmer. This means that you can use your Freetronics Eleven, EtherTen or other Arduino-compatible board to upload a sketch, or reflash the boot loader on another Arduino board. We have put together a comprehensive tutorial describing how this can be done, check it out at the following link.  

One of our Arduino-compatible boards is the EtherMega. Apart from being completely Arduino Mega2560-compatible, it includes a full Ethernet interface, a microSD card socket, full USB interface, optional Power-over-Ethernet support and still has a circuit prototyping area with extra I2C interface pins. So if your project is breaking the limits, upgrade to the EtherMega today.

Many of our products are packaged in our standard blue-and-yellow retail box, like the one on the left. It's designed to hold either a regular size or a Mega size Arduino compatible board with a USB cable and a quickstart guide, which is perfect for boards like the EtherMega and the Eleven.

But for most of our shields it's overkill, because most of the box is empty. So I'm working on a design for a new, compact box that will suit a standard size Arduino shield or an Arduino without a cable.

Ideally I want to make the new box exactly half the size of the standard box, because then they can fit perfectly into our existing shipping boxes. We use shipping boxes that hold either 2 or 6 of the standard product boxes like the one on the left, so they will now be able to hold 4 or 12 of the new half-sized boxes. Or it could be a combination: our small shipping box could now hold 2 standard boxes, or 4 half-size boxes, or 1 standard plus 2 half-size. It should also reduce our shipping costs because we are usually charged by volume, not weight.

Right now the "half-size" box is actually a bit longer than half the length of the standard box, because the standard box also includes a retail hang tag on the top which adds to its packing length. Two of the half-size boxes placed end to end are just slightly longer than the standard box plus its hang tag. It's close enough though: they fit perfectly into our shipping boxes, which is the most important thing!

This cool project displays the collective “feeling” of the entire twitter world in a multicoloured mood light.  The mood light constantly monitors twitter and aggregates the tweets based on emotional content to determine a world wide mood. Once the mood has been determined it is displayed in the mood light with different colours indicating different moods. This is a great way to quickly find out if a significant event has happened. To get started with this unique project checkout the following link.

If you are looking for an RGB LED to use in this project why not checkout our FreePixel, a colour LED with a brain! The FreePizel includes a bright WS2812B addressable RGB LED and can be daisy-chained, so you can connect a number of these together in a string and drive each of the module colours individually from your microcontroller. Best of all these diverse modules are great value at only $3! To order or find out more checkout the following link. 

Whether you are looking for a guide of where to point your telescope or just have a fascination for our solar system, this project is definitely for you. Shubham Paul has put together a great realtime planet tracking system. Although the hardware on this project is fairly simple consisting of an Arduino, GPS module and servo, the algorithms that calculate the approximation of a planet's position using Kepler's laws are particularly impressive.  To find out more about how you can build your own real time planet tracker checkout the following link.  

The EtherMega is a great “fully-loaded” Arduino-compatible board. Apart from being completely Arduino Mega2560-compatible, it includes a full Ethernet interface, a microSD card socket, full USB interface, optional Power-over-Ethernet support and still has a circuit prototyping area with extra I2C interface pins. So if your project is breaking the limits, upgrade to the EtherMega today.

One of the challenges of working with an Ethernet connected Arduino device can be having to get both an Ethernet cable and a power cord to the device. Power over Ethernet or PoE solves this problem by running power through the Ethernet cable! To find out more about this useful solution checkout the tutorial we have written to explain the ins and outs of PoE in more detail.

If you are planning on using PoE in one of your own projects you may need our 28V Power Regulator for PoE. This versatile device can be used as a general purpose regulator outputting 5V or 7V from an input voltage of up to 28V, however, the regulator is designed to mount onto our EtherTen or EtherMega Arduino compatible boards and pre regulate the voltage inputted to your device from PoE down to the 7V the Arduino can handle. To find out more and to purchase checkout the following link.