Author Archives: DP

DIY Pick and Place v2 project complete

Brian Dorey has written an article detailing the build of his DIY Pick and Place v2 project: The DIY pick and place machine project is now finally running and is able to place the components for our Raspberry Pi expansion boards. This project started in July 2013 when we began to order the various components, bearings, motors, […]

Experience with the Bus Pirate

Steve of Big Mess o’ Wires shares his impressions of the Bus Pirate as a prototyping and test tool: I finally got curious enough that I decided to just buy one, and get the sense of the Bus Pirate through hands-on experimentation. My conclusion is: it’s great! Imagine every hardware programmer, debugger, serial cable, and interface tool […]

UberCubeX4- The MSP430 based benchtop LED cube

In this video Rohit Gupta demonstrates his 4x4x4 LED Cube using MSP430G2553 microcontroller: I recently made a led cube. It is a project i was dreaming to fiddle with for quite a while(years). I finally managed to make one. Here is the complete video of the demonstration.Its basically a 4x4x4 Led Cube with various patterns programmed into it. […]

A digitally controlled dual tracking power supply I

Kerry D. Wong writes: Power supply is one of those things one can never have too many of. I have quite a few already, and my favorite one so far is the Topward 6603A. This dual 60V/3A tracking power supply satisfies most of my needs. I have since added an automatic fan controller, digital voltage […]

App note: Selecting the Optimum Voltage Reference

An application note from Maxim giving you hints when selecting voltage references on your designs. What could be more basic than a voltage reference—a simple, constant reference voltage? As with all design topics, there are tradeoffs. This article discusses the different types of voltage references, their key specifications, and the design tradeoffs, including accuracy, temperature-independence, […]

App note: Low-Cost Shunt Energy Meter using MCP3909 and PIC18F25K20

Here’s a low-cost single phase energy metering solution using Microchip’s MCP3909 metering ADC and PIC18F25K20 8-bit microcontroller. App note can be found here. The meter was tested for a range of current from 0.1A to 20A using the Fluke 6100A Electrical Power Standard. Measurement results are visible on the LCD or on the Pulse Output. […]

App note: Long Delay Generation Using the AVR Microcontroller

Here’s an app note from ATMEL presenting a solution for microcontroller long delays. The solution presented here shows how the AVR AT90 series microcontrollers (AT90S2313, AT90S4414 and AT90S8515) generate and handle long delays. On-chip timers are used without any software intervention, thus allowing the core to be in a low-power mode during the delay. Since […]

App note: Capacitive Multibutton Configurations

A capacitive mutibutton configuration application note from Microchip describing how to scan and detect button presses on more than 4 capacitive buttons. This application note will discuss three different approaches to implementing multiple touch buttons using Microchip microcontrollers. The first approach creates a simple 4 sensor system using the on-chip 4-to-1 analog multiplexers tied to […]

MCC8 – PIC24 based CHIP-8 game emulator

Here’s another project by Mats the handheld PIC24-based CHIP-8 emulator game console: This is a small handheld PIC24-based CHIP-8 카지노사이트 emulator game console. A cheap Noika 1202 LCD is used as the display and a CR123A 3 volt lithium battery for power. CHIP-8 is an interpreted programming language, developed by Joseph Weisbecker. It was initially used […]

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. More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week: Free PCB Sunday. The classic. Every week, get […]

Week in (p)review November 22, 2013

Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. Sick Of Beige Basic Case v1 (DP7043), Sick Of Beige basic case v1 (DP9056) and Bus Blaster v3 are back in stock Check out Nick’s uCAN project update, cpldcpu LPC812 Breakout board, and jrychter’s Bus Pirate reference card in the project log forum Another chipKIt […]

A PIC16F145x based PIC16F145x USB programmer

From the comments on our PIC16F145X: Full-Speed USB with no external crystal post, Maurice Bos writes: I wrote software to turn a PIC16F145x into a PIC16F145x programmer (over USB). It’s free and open source (GPL3), and it might be useful. Add any feature requests (or bugs) on Github, or just e-mail me. :) Via the comments.

Building a self balancing bot

Bajdi documented his Arduino self balancing bot build: For the electronics I used one of my own PCB creations, a Bajduino of course  It’s just a small (50x50mm) break out board for an ATmega328. I’m running the ATmega @ 16MHz and 3.3V. It’s out of spec according to the datasheet but it works… I also needed an IMU […]