Friday, 17 January 2014 11:34
PicShow component: Image Transition Effects for RAD Studio XE5

TPicShow is an image slider VCL that enables you to create amazing splash screens and 176 transitional effects in pure Delphi code.
Features:
- Image transition can be controlled programmatically
- Image can be stretched or centered in the client area of the control
- Control can show a background image as centered, stretched, or tiled
- Transition process can use a separate thread
- New transitional effects can be easily implemented and added.
TPicShow's last update is on July 19, 2010 which does not support RAD Studio XE. By creating a package file, you can installing and running TPicShow on RAD Studio XE5 without any problem.
Download TPicShow for XE5
Sunday, 03 November 2013 17:49
Sharp GP2Y0A21 IR distance sensors
Sharp GP2Y0A21 is an infra-red distance measuring sensor unit, it is extremely effective, easy to use, very affordable and has low power consumption. specification as follow:
- Distance measuring range: 10 to 80cm (4" to 32")
- Operating voltage: 4.5V to 5.5V
- Output type: Analog voltage
- Average power consumption : 35 mA
- Peak power consumption : about 200 mA
- Output voltage differential over distance range: 1.9V
- Maximum allowable Angle : > 40 °
- The frequency of updates/cycle : 25 Hz/40 ms
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Wednesday, 25 September 2013 18:40
Using 74HC595 Shift Registers with Arduino

The 74HC595 is a very handy IC used in many microcontroller projects, it is a 8-bit serial-in, serial/parallel-out shift register with output latches.
Data is shifted on the positive-going transitions of the shift register clock input (SHCP). The data in each register is transferred to the storage register on a positive-going transition of the storage register clock input (STCP).
The shift register has a serial input (DS) and a serial standard output (Q7S) for cascading. Data in the storage register appears at the output whenever the output enable input (OE) is LOW.
This is incredibly helpful if you need more digital outputs then the 14+6 that the ATmega328 on the Arduino Uno provides, with only 3 data pins, you can control an almost unlimited amount of outputs.
Upon completion of this tutorial, you should be able to controlling the 74HC595 as below:
- Using 74HC595 Shift Registers with Arduino
- Daisy chaining 74HC595 shift registers
- Different ways (binary, decimal, hex) to hold the data using an array
- Using bitshift, bitwrite operators
- Direct port access for faster manipulation of the IO pins
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Sunday, 14 July 2013 15:20
Arduino communicate with Vixen Lighting Control Software

Vixen is a free and popular light show creator software. With a PC and some hardware, anyone can have a professional-looking lighting display synchronized to music.
The latest version is Vixen3, the most attractive feature is supported for preview. Compare to Vixen2, Vixen3 is a bit difficult to use & lack of some features in Vixen2. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
This tutorial is based on Vixen2, please download Vixen2 and install it to your computer. Prior to Vixen2, you must have install Microsot.NET Framework 2.0 in your computer.
Saturday, 13 July 2013 18:26
Connect Two Wireless Router Wirelessly ( Bridge ) using TL-MR3020

Explains how to bridge network using two wireless routers, the first (Host) router is configure as Access Point & the second router (TL-MR3020) is configure as Client mode. Same method should apply to all other OpenWRT routers as well.
Prerequisites
- Host router configure as Access Point. If you already setup a wireless internet connection in your house, usually your modem is configured as Access Point mode.
- A working OpenWRT on TP-LINK TL-MR3020 Portable 3G/4G Wireless N Router
The routers is configure as two different subnet, assume using settings below as the example.
- Host router IP: 192.168.1.1
- Host router subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 or 255.255.0.0 if you want to access 192.168.0.x from 192.168.1.x
- Host router SSID: ABC
- Client router IP: 192.168.0.1
- Client router subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
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