Chapter 9. Building your own thing

 

This chapter covers

  • The endless possibilities of creating your own mashups using preexisting, low-voltage consumer electronics
  • Steps for creating your own inventions: prototyping, iterating, and debugging
  • Isolating circuits from each other using photocouplers
  • Analyzing datasheets and other software and firmware implementations to create your own software support for components
  • Encapsulating component behavior with custom Johnny-Five plugins and the J5 Collection mixin
  • Wrangling sophisticated sensors: processing complex data and managing configuration

For this chapter, you’ll need the following:

  • 1 Tessel 2
  • 1 set of remote-controlled wall outlets
  • 1 SparkFun 3.3 V APDS-9960 breakout board
  • Soldering iron and supplies
  • Push buttons and/or LEDs for debugging circuits (optional)
  • 6 photocouplers (opto-isolators), such as the 4N25
  • 6 100 V resistors
  • 1 full-size breadboard
  • Jumper wires
  • 1 multimeter
  • 0.1″ male breakaway headers
  • 22AWG solid-core wire (optional, for soldering to remote control circuitry)

Hardware toolkit for chapter 9 (optional 22AWG solid-core wire not shown)

9.1. Hacking consumer electronics

9.2. Controlling the remote switches with a Johnny-Five component plugin

9.3. Writing software for sophisticated hardware

Summary