Here’s a great resources of motor drivers from Precision Microdrives. Link is here. Whilst most DC motors are essentially driven with the same principle (by applying a DC voltage), these chips boast a host of different features. Some accept analogue inputs, others PWM or I2C, H-bridges will enable you to easily change the direction of […]
Author Archives: DP
Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week two random commenters will […]
App note: Introductory gear equations
In using motors, we may tackle on coupling these little mechanical devices to something to move or maybe we might need more torque but paying for speed, Precision Microdrives’ app note gives us basics in gear calculation. Link is here. For quickly experimenting or prototyping, you may wish to build your own cheap gear chain. […]
App note: 400MHz, 2500V/µs, 9mA single/dual operational amplifiers
400MHz, 2500V/µs, 9mA single/dual operational amplifiers (PDF!) application note from Linear Technology: FEATURES 400MHz Gain Bandwidth Product 2500V/μs Slew Rate –85dBc Distortion at 5MHz 9mA Supply Current Per Amplifier 6nV/√Hz Input Noise Voltage Unity-Gain Stable 1.5mV Maximum Input Offset Voltage 8μA Maximum Input Bias Current 800nA Maximum Input Offset Current 40mA Minimum Output Current, VOUT = ±3V […]
A real-time table tennis score keeper
A real-time automatic table tennis score keeper by Pol, Frank, and Taylor from Cornell University, built as a final project: The primary goal of this project is to use digital signal processing on a video feed to track a ping-pong ball in a game of table tennis. We propose that by tracking the movement of a ball, […]
ESP8266 WiFi touch screen thermostat
An instructables on how to build WiFi touch screen thermostat by EasyIoT: In this tutorial we will show how to build WiFi controlled thermostat with ESP8266, Arduino and touch screen display. Thermostat will also show other info, like weather forecast and temperature outside. Total cost for thermostat is about 40EUR, which is price for basic commercial thermostat […]
Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters
Every Friday we give away some extra PCBs via Facebook. This post was announced on Facebook, and on Monday we’ll send coupon codes to two random commenters. The coupon code usually go to Facebook ‘Other’ Messages Folder . More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every […]
Universal soldering controller
sparkybg shared his universal soldering controller in the project log forum: The intention was to build the most universal soldering controller I can think of. It can drive any low voltage (upto 24V) iron with thermocouple or resistive sensor, in series with the heater, or separate. Here is a short list of features: – power: […]
Ben Heck’s DIY PIC32 Dev board
In this video Ben Heck of Element14 demonstrates how he build his own PIC32 development board.
ESP8266 Breadboard adapter
Baoshi of DigitalMe wrote an article detailing his ESP8266 (ESP-07/12) Full I/O Breadboard adapter, that is available at Github: The rise of the ESP8266 WiFi chip was almost overnight with Espressif’s open approach and pushing from Hackaday. While no ground-breaking product has yet emerged, the development on the chip are phenomenon. However due to an unknown reason the […]
Interfacing PIR sensor to 8051 microcontroller
Praveen from CircuitsToday has written up an article on interfacing PIR sensor to 8051 microcontroller: PIR sensors are widely used in motion detecting devices. This article is about interfacing a PIR sensor to 8051 microcontroller. A practical intruder alarm system using PIR sensor and 8051 microcontroller is also included at the end of this article. Before going in […]
Mikey’s first DirtyPCB experience
Mikey shares his first impressions with DirtyPCBs: Yes, exclamation mark and lots of yelling! The PCB’s has arrived, lets have a look at them. At first glance they look very good, silk screen is fine, both on top and bottom. The outline of the board feels smooth with a sharp edge, just as it should […]
#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs
Every Tuesday we give away two coupons for the free PCB drawer via Twitter. This post was announced on Twitter, and in 24 hours we’ll send coupon codes to two random retweeters. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week: Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch […]
Talk SPI to EEPROM part3: Test SPI Protocol with Bus Pirate
Jan Cumps tested out SPI Protocol using a Bus Pirate: It wasn’t my initial intention to use the Bus Pirate. But my first naive attempts to talk from Hercules to EEPROM failed. I could create the SPI instructions with the LaunchPad, but I didn’t get a reply back from the 25LC256. It’s in these cases that […]
Arduboy – card sized gaming
The final Arduboy, an Arduino gaming and learning project, came out yesterday. Kevin has been in Shenzhen arranging manufacturing for the last few months. He’s also been a staple at the neighborhood BBQ place and Hacker Camp after parties, some of us even got access to pre-release dev-kits. Of all the project builds I’ve witnessed […]
Simple Infrared PWM on Arduino
The crew from AnalysIR has written up an article on Simple Infrared PWM on Arduino. This first part of a series will show you how to generate the simple Infrared carrier frequency on Arduino: We are often asked on discussion boards, about conflicts between IRremote or IRLib and other Arduino Libraries. In this post, we present a […]
Power Meter pulse logger with ESP8266 running NodeMCU
Patrik Thalin writes: This device is installed in my home to monitor the usage of electricity. It counts the pulses from the meter and produces a log file with number of pulses and a time stamp that can later be analyzed. The hardware is quite simple. The NodeMCU development kit board with an ESP8266 running […]
Teardown, repair and analysis of an Anritsu MS2721A 7.1GHz portable spectrum analyzer
Teardown, repair and analysis of an Anritsu MS2721A 7.1GHz portable spectrum analyzer by Shahriar of TheSignalPath: In this episode Shahriar takes a look at an Anritsu MS2721A portable spectrum analyzer which does not completely boot up. After displaying the message “Application Running!” the unit no longer advances to the main measurement screen. After intentionally corrupting […]
App note: Advanced vibration alerting waveforms
Here’s an app note from Precision Microdrives on different techniques of motor vibration that can be used as haptic feedback. Link can be found here Advanced signal waveforms are predominantly used in haptic feedback, but in fact the effects of simple vibration alerting can be greatly improved with relative ease. With vibration alerting the output […]
Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week two random commenters will […]