Today we mostly worked on the 3D model and rendering. We’ll be in the forum tomorrow if anyone needs help with their Christmas boards.
Author Archives: DP
Universal re-routing board for Arduino shields
While visiting Dimitri’s workshop in Shenzhen he showed us the MIX-UP board. It’s an Arduino shield that let’s you re-route any digital or analog signal (excluding D0 and D1 pins) to any pin on a shield. The board is populated with a bunch of DIP switches which control the routing of the pins. MIX UP […]
PCB a Week 2: DigiPot
Matseng continues his challenge of designing one PCB a week. The latest PCB is DigiPot, a digital potentiometer with a rotatory encoder for control, and a 4 digit 7-segment used to display the current value. The basic idea is a digital potentiometer with a 7-segment display that shows the current value. The “potentiometer” is a […]
Home soldered Sick of Beige compliant Bus Pirate v4
Some time ago Schazamp made a community order of Sick of Beige compliant Bus Pirate v4. Presslab received his and soldered it up. All that’s left is to wait for his Sick of Beige acrylic panels to arrive and assemble the case. I built mine, they look really great. Thanks again schazamp. Now I am […]
Metal oxide varistors catch fire in surge protection devices
Arhi tipped us off to a potential problem in cheap surge protection devices. The metal oxide varistors (MOVs) found in surge protectors are prone to catching fire in cases of extended current surges. MOVs are designed to suck up short surges that might occur on power lines. Unfortunately, in case of prolonged surges MOVs break […]
App note: Zero cross detector for AVRs
Atmel describes how to implement zero cross detection on an AVR. Zero cross detection is used to find the exact moment when a signal crosses from positive into negative, or vice-versa. This is useful in periodic AC signals as it gives you a reference point of when a new half period has started. This application […]
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: Bootloading 101
Texas Instruments describes bootloaders and what they are all about. A bootloader is a piece of code that allows new firmware to be loaded into a microcontroller without a dedicated programmer. All of our projects use a bootloader so you can upgrade over a USB or serial connection. For PIC micros we usually use two […]
App note: Simulating fast transient loads for testing power supplies
How to implement a fast load transient simulator for power supply testing. One of important factor of power supplies is how they react to fast changing loads. This article describes how to design a system that measures power supply performance under quickly changing loads. To obtain fast load transients, we combine a power MOSFET and […]
App note: Digitally Addressable Lighting Interface
Microchip describes the digitally addressable lighting interface (DALI). This interface was designed to control dimmable fluorescent ballasts. Two wires are used to transmit Manchester coded message packets. The timing is standardized at 1200 bps so there is no need to transmit the clock signal, similar to how UART transmission works. The Digitally Addressable Lighting Interface […]
Workshop Update for December 21st, 2012
We’ve been spreading holiday cheer. Postponing Beers in Akiba’s workshop video until next Thursday, sorry about not posting a video this week. We continue working on the breadboard power supply. Image by .:oomlout:. : CC BY-SA
Etch a Sketch temperature logger
Hack an Etch a Sketch toy to act as a display for your projects. In this example it’s used as a temperature logger. The project uses two stepper motors driving the knobs, which are controlled via a PICAXE 18M2 microcontroller. Via Hacked Gadgets.
Basic input and output on the Netduino
Embedded-Lab is doing a series of tutorials for the Netduino, the open source Arduino shield compatible platform using the .Net Micro Framework. The first tutorial in the series is a how to on implementing basic input and output. We will start our Netduino tutorial series with a very basic project of flashing an LED. The […]
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 December 21, 2012
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. 3D Model: Bus Pirate and breadboard holder Eagle Parts: Dual supply 8-Bit bidirectional voltage level translator in TSSOP-20 Bus Pirate scratch and dent brought back to life Testing the new reduced-sized ICSP connector Workshop Update for December 20th, […]
Workshop Update for December 20th, 2012
Today we made some final adjustments to our latest video, and finished up our end-of-year accounting. We worked on our standard PCBs templates. The “DPXXXX” label that used to be fixed on the bottom of the template is now movable, and editable.
Safe enclosures for solid state relays and mains current
Solid state relays can switch everyday mains-powered devices like lamps, but there’s danger inherent in working with household AC voltage. Victor wrote a tutorial on how to enclose the SSR in an old laptop power supply case. It’s simple to build, and it keeps you and your fingers safer than a bare board. For a […]
Xmas tree with sound-controlled LED animations
Sound controlled LED light show for your Xmas tree. An STM32 microcontroller takes instructions from a PC via Bluetooth and animates the LEDs. This is my Christmas tree, it has over 400 lights (exactly 404) that are all individually controlled by an STM32 microcontroller. The computer plays the music and processes the sync track for […]
DIY indoor thermometer and moisture meter
Raj designed an open hardware DIY indoor thermometer and moisture meter. It’s based on the PIC16F688 coupled with the DH11 temperature and humidity sensor. The 7-segment display has auto brightness correction depending on the lighting conditions. This project is about building a microcontroller-based digital room thermometer plus hygrometer that displays temperature and relative humidity on […]
Jingle bells playing Christmas tree
Here’s a fun project in the Christmas spirit. It’s a “Jingle bells” playing card, with the specific notes being signaled via LEDs as they are being played. We have 9 control lines for the LEDs and 1 line for the speaker signal. We want the device to start playing if a push button is pressed […]