APCC DIY - Green Energy

Canon LP-E8 Replacement

Details: Category: Photography; Published on Thursday, 16 May 2013 04:49; Written by DIY-Photography; Hits: 99

This very cheap Canon LP-E8 replacement battery has a high capacity of 1500mAh, making it possible to shoot many still images or videos with your: Replacement-LP-E8

- Canon EOS 550D, Canon EOS 600D, Canon EOS 650D and the new Canon EOS 700D.

- Canon EOS Kiss X4, Canon EOS Kiss X5, Canon EOS Kiss X6i and Canon EOS Kiss X7i

- Canon EOS Rebel T2i, Canon EOS Rebel T3i, Canon EOS Rebel T4i and Canon EOS Rebel T5i

This high capacity LP-E8 battery with 1500mAh for the new Canon EOS 700D / T5i camera provides more capacity with 30% than the standard genuine Canon LP-E8 battery with only 1120mAh.

The LP-E8 replacement battery is also compact and lightweight (~ 100g). Is very important that the battery does not have memory effects, so you can recharge partially drained batteries without reducing performance.

How long to charge my CANON LP-E8 batteries? For most battery chargers with LED lights the RED light on indicates charging in progress and the GREEN light on indicates charging completed, is not recommended to keep the battery in the charger after is fully charged.

You can calculate the approximate charge time dividing the desired charge mAh (battery capacity rates) by the charge rate of your battery charger mA. For example to charge 1500 mAh rated batteries that are fully discharged it would take about 2 hours using a charger with a charge rate of 750 mA. (1500/750 = 2 hrs.)

DIY PCB

Details: Category: DIY Projects; Published on Thursday, 09 May 2013 07:23; Written by DIY-Arduino; Hits: 168

DIY PCB How To In this article I will describe how to make your own Printed Circuit Board (DIY PCB) using laser printer toner transfer.

You can easily make your own good-quality PCBs, from a laser-printer or copier printout of the desired copper pattern, using an ordinary iron (your wife will not happy with this), and the correct paper type (glossy paper or picture paper). The type of paper used is the most-importantly! Almost all types of paper will work.

You can have finished DIY PCB's at your home in less than two hours, including laser printing, preparing the copper board, transferring the layout, removing the paper, etching the copper surface, and drilling the holes.

You have to start start out by laying out the PCB traces & pads with your favorite PCB design program. I used ExpressPCB, mainly because it's free for download and easy to use.

Arduino Pro Mini

Details: Category: News; Published on Wednesday, 08 May 2013 05:35; Written by DailyTechNews; Hits: 108

I thinks this Arduino ProMini is the cheapest and smallest board with full capability based on Arduino. Arduino Pro Mini front view

The Arduino Pro Mini is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega 328P from Atmel (datasheet). It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, an on-board 16Mhz resonator, a reset button, and holes for mounting pin headers (2.54mm). A six pin header can be connected to an FTDI cable.

The board comes only with holes (with 2.54mm spacing), without pre-mounted headers, allowing the use of various types of connectors or direct soldering of wires.

The pin layout of the Pro Mini board is compatible with the Arduino Mini.

This version of Arduino runs at 5V and 16 MHz, but it has a raw power connector where you can add power supply from 5V up to 12v (DC voltage!).

Installing Magic Lantern 650D Pre-Alpha

Details: Category: Photography; Published on Sunday, 05 May 2013 11:38; Written by DIY-Photography; Hits: 963

Installing Magic Lantern Pre-Alpha on Canon EOS 650D. magic lantern on 650D

First off all, updating or replacing hardware firmware IS VERY DANGEROUS AND MIGHT DAMAGE YOUR CAMERA. NO WARRANTIES. NO GUARANTEES.

If you are not comfortable with this, please stop reading this article about how to install Magic lantern on 650D Canon camera.

First if your 650D camera firmware is still "untouched", you have to enable the boot flag.

You will have to download some files:

        - download the .fir file (650D safe-dumper), here
        - download the 650D Alpha 2 files from the Magic Lanter web site, here
        - download EOScard, to make the SD card bootable from here

Nissin Di622 for Canon 650D

Details: Category: Photography; Published on Tuesday, 02 April 2013 05:44; Written by DIY-Photography; Hits: 418

After I upgraded my old 400D DSLR camera with the new Canon Nissin Di622 with 650D EOS 650D, I found about a compatibility issues between my Nissin Di622 flash (mark I) with 650D.

Immediately I contacted the Nissin support and also the Canon support, next day I received an answer from the Nissin support team:

Thank you for your mail and purchasing Nissin Di622 for Canon.

Due to the hardware design on Di622 for Canon is not supported to Canon 650D, so the Di622 for Canon will not working properly with this DSLR models.

For more details for the compatible models, you may consider to download our latest compatibility chart here

However, the latest firmware for Di622 can make it support X-Contact trigger in manual mode. It may make it work with the radio trigger that support X-Contact functions.

Our local distributor will handle the firmware update service to their official products. You may found the local warranty card in box, stated with the contact information.

In the case that if the local warranty card is missing, you may contact to seller for the after sales support or help to transfer your unit to the original country for the firmware update.

Regards, Thank you very much. Nissin Digital

Canon 650D rubber grips problem

Details: Category: Photography; Published on Friday, 22 March 2013 12:24; Written by DIY-Photography; Hits: 650

Yesterday I bought a new DSLR camera, a Canon EOS 650D together with a canon 50mm f1.8 lens.

After a few tests of the new camera, I decided to check if it is affected by the rubbers grip problem. Unfortunetly, I got the answer from the Canon website: "Your camera is affected".

Immediately I contacted the seller and also Canon. The seller promised me to replace my 650D with an unaffected new camera. From the Canon I didn't get any feedback (yet).

If you have a EOS 650D camera and you are interested if it is affected, you can check by the serial number of the body here.

According to Canon, '....some EOS 650D units produced between May 31st and June 27th 2012 may turn white after a short period of time....contact with this substance may cause an allergic skin reaction'. 650D LEFT and Right Rubber Grip

Canon 700D

Details: Category: Photography; Published on Thursday, 21 March 2013 05:42; Written by DIY-Photography; Hits: 330

Today (N.Y. March 21, 2013) Canon announced de new EOS 700D D Canon 700D / T5i SLR camera with DiGic 5 processor and 18Mp image sensor.

The EOS 700D will replace the EOS 650D camera usind the same DiGic 5 pocessor.

When shooting in Live View mode, the new Hybrid Auto Focus system (introduced with the older 650D) enables speedy and accurate autofocus for photos and videos together with the new STM lenses.

The Canon EOS Rebel 700D (T5i) offers easily usable semi-professional video capture. This canon camera offers the ability to shoot videos in 1080p (Full HD 1920 x 1080) with 30 frames per second and 60 frames per second with a resolution of 720P (1280 x 720). The new Canon Hybrid CMOS AF System and Movie Servo AF will provide continuous autofocus for tracking of moving subjects.

The built-in stereo microphone will offer great sound for your movies, but if you want even more clean sound (without the autofocus noise) you can connect an external microphone.

20A Solar charge controller 12/24V

Details: Category: Green energy; Published on Thursday, 21 February 2013 07:19; Written by DIY-GreenEnergy; Hits: 470

Cheap 20A solar charge controller with auto 12v or 24v (up to 480 watt) detection and lighting control. 20A solar charge controller 12-24V

A solar charge controller, or charge regulator is basically a voltage and / or current regulator to protect batteries from overcharging, it regulates the voltage and current coming from the solar panels going to the battery, most batteries need around 14 to 14.5 volts to get fully charged.

This solar charger can handle 12 volts and 24 volts solart systems up to 480 Watts also providing lighting control.

400Plus

Details: Category: DIY Projects; Published on Thursday, 17 January 2013 05:52; Written by DIY-Photography; Hits: 1257

400Plus firmware hack for Canon 400D DSLR (aka. Rebel XTi / KISS Digital X), new tricks for your old DSLR.

Searching for custom firmwares for Canon DSLR's like Magic Lantern, I found an interesting firmware enhancement 400Plus, which offers additional functionality and capabilities to my old 400D (aka. XTi) camera.

400Plus it works by loading into your camera's internal memory automatically upon boot-up from the compact flash card to enhance the native camera firmware. Is not a permanent firmware upgrade, the original firmware remains unchanged and can easily be removed form the CF card.

Magic Lantern 650D

Details: Category: News; Published on Wednesday, 02 January 2013 19:03; Written by DIY-Photography; Hits: 3960

2013 comes with a new super tool for Canon 650D (Rebel T4i). The Magic Lantern team is testing the fist alpha version of ML for 650D (4Ti).

In the first, Magic Lantern was an open platform for developing enhancements to the amazing Canon 5D Mark II and 550D (T2i) DSLR cameras.

Now Magic Lantern v2.3 works on:

- Canon 500D / T1i / Kiss X3: firmware 1.1.1

- Canon 550D / T2i / Kiss X4: firmware 1.0.9

- Canon 600D / T3i / Kiss X5: firmware 1.0.2

- Canon 50D: firmware 1.0.9

- Canon 60D: firmware 1.1.1

- Canon 5D Mark II: firmware 2.1.2

- Canon 650D / T4i 2013 first alpha version (not for public yet)

- For the older Canon 400D / XTi you can use 400plus "firmware"

Magic Lantern is an enhancement atop of the Canon's firmware, allowing you to use many useful features. It does not replace the existing firmware, it is installed on your memory card.

PWM Arduino

Details: Category: DIY Projects; Published on Wednesday, 05 December 2012 13:10; Written by DIY-Arduino; Hits: 4549

PWM (Pulse-width modulation) can be implemented on the Arduino Diecimila and Duemilanove in several ways:

- Bit-banging PWM arduino PWM

- Fast PWM

- Phase-Correct PWM

- Fast PWM Mode with OCRA top

Pulse-width modulation is a way of encoding a voltage onto a fixed frequency carrier wave (like on FM or AM radio)

Writing a value from 0 to 255 on a Arduino PWM pin, will cause the pin to output a PWM signal whose on time is in proportion to the value written, a value of 255 will be 5 volts on the PWM pin.

Becouse de power limitation of the Arduino PWM pins, I used in my schematics 2pcs of BD139 power transistor, one for every fan.

To protect PWM pins from the higher voltage (12v DC) I used an two channel optocoupler (LTV-826)

The schematics of this Arduino PWM shield is very simple, and anyone can build it. You can download all the project files you will need it here

Isight pinout

Details: Category: News; Published on Thursday, 29 November 2012 10:25; Written by DIY-GreenEnergy; Hits: 839

After my unibody Apple A1342 died, no longer turns on I removed the internal Isight webcam. I want it to use it later on my desktop pc via USB cable.

The few internal webcams I've looked up specs for, all have been USB.

After my isight webcam been laying around. I thought I splice up the cable and connected to a USB connector.

The GND and the 5V (power) signal you can detected with a simple voltmeter.

I couldn't believed what just happen. On the second try I got it right, the webcam works perfectly and sends clear images to my desktop PC.

Plugged it in an USB port and instantly recognized my WIndows 7 64bit as Isight webcam without additional driver.

Arduino PWM fan or motor speed control

Details: Category: News; Published on Wednesday, 14 November 2012 10:23; Written by DIY-GreenEnergy; Hits: 3192

Arduino-fan-control You can use different components (like opocoplers, power transistors, darlibgton transistors) to control the speed of the 12V fan / motors using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) from Arduino PWM digital outputs.

Arduino digital PWM pins:

- digital pin 3 - PCINT19/0C2B/INT1 PD3

- digital pin 5 - PCINT21/0C0B/T1 PD5

- digital pin 6 - PCINT22/0C0A/AIN0 PD6

- digital pin 9 - PCINT1/0C1A PB1

- digital pin 10 - PCINT2/0C1B/SS PB2

- digital pin 11 - PCINT3/0C2A/MOSI PB3