Author Archives: DP

RoboRoach helps you control a living insect from your smartphone

The RoboRoach: Control a living insect from your smartphone! by Backyard Brains This is one of the most incredible kickstarter campaign ever Control the movements of a live cockroach from your own mobile device! This is the world’s first commercially available cyborg! Via Open Electronics.

#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 […]

E-Paper clock in a Sick of Beige case

Kevin Rye built this E-Paper clock and wrote a detailed explanation on his blog describing the build: I still have to put the finishing touches on the code. Instead of having the display constantly update, I’d like to set an alarm on the DS3231 RTC to go off once a minute, and only update the […]

A DIY vacuum fluorescent display driver

Kerry Wong posted an update on his vacuum fluorescent display driver we covered earlier: As I mentioned before, there are many driver chips (e.g. MAX6921, MAX6931) readily available for interfacing with VFDs. The driver circuit I am showing here is a bit more complex as it uses only the generic 74HC’s and discrete transistors. The basic […]

ATtiny25 Basic VCO, RC oscillator overclocking and testing frequency pickup

Alex over at InsideGadgets has posted an article describing how he built an ATtiny25 voltage controller oscillator (VCO): I recently bought a Rigol DS1052E and have been playing around with the different functionality it has. Eventually I came to the point that I’d like to see what frequency does to various components and wanted to build […]

App note: Protecting 1-wire 5V slaves from overvoltage

Here is a tutorial from Maxim describing how to protect your 1-wire slave devices from overvoltage. If an application requires writing to EPROM devices after deployment, 5V devices need to be protected from overvoltage exposure. This article explains how to have 1-Wire EPROMs and 5V 1-Wire devices on the same bus, if the 5V devices […]

App note: LLC DC DC reference design using dsPIC

Here is a LLC DC DC converter reference design from Microchip using dsPIC digital signal processing capabilities for control. As presented in this application note, resonant converters, LLC resonant converters in  particular, have all of the features mentioned above, resulting in a compact and highly efficient design. Their ability to keep the output voltage regulated, […]

App note: Damage from a lightning bolt or a spark—It depends on how tall you are!

Here’s an application note from Maxim describing how to protect printed circuit boards (PCBs) against ESD destruction: Large steel buildings, automobiles, mountains, even people survive real atmospheric lightning. Humans can also create their own miniature lightning bolts (sparks) and survive. When those sparks reach an IC, however, major trouble results. In this tutorial, we will discuss […]

App note: Modular-exponentiation timing with MAXQ30 microcontrollers

Here is an article from Maxim on modular exponentiation, modular arithmetic accelerator (MAA) and lists typical times to execute various sized exponentiations: The MAXQ1050, MAXQ1850, and MAXQ1103 are secure 32-bit microcontrollers that provide hardware support for performing modular arithmetic. This is done using an engine called the modular arithmetic accelerator (MAA). This application note gives typical […]

Turn a smart phone into a signal generator

Jacob Beningo has written an article detailing how to turn a smart phone into a signal generator: Signal generators are a handy thing to have around the lab. They are perfect for testing inputs on a new hardware design and verifying the behavior of a circuit before connecting all the pieces together. In recent years […]

Week in (p)review June 14, 2013

Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. FT311D breakout PCB build Check out Kasbah’s Nomech mini project, Mats’ Peweem, and Suf’s frequency counter based on MSP430 in the project log forum Coming up: Free PCBs via Facebook on Friday App notes on the weekend Free PCB […]