Eric Gunnerson has been working on a sequence controller project: Yeah. Those pins are beautifully aligned a very precise 0.1” from where they are supposed to be… Pro tip: Print out your design and put your components on it so that you can check the design. Meta pro tip: Follow your pro tips. Anyway, that’s […]
Author Archives: DP
DIY AD9833 signal generator
Daumemo has been working on a DIY signal generator based on an AD9833 IC: In this post I am going to continue with the DIY signal generator based on the AD9833 IC where I have left in the previous part. Earlier, I have talked how I had built my first analog signal generator’s stage – […]
Arduboy with removable flash cart
A homebrew Arduboy with removale flash cart from Facelesstech: I’ll start with the Arduboy its self. I wanted to make a small Arduboy that anyone with basic soldering skills could make. I don’t think its the easies of boards to solder but its the only way I could make it small enough and have all […]
App note: FPGA power supply considerations
App note from Vishay Siliconix, giving us tips on powering FPGAs. Link here (PDF) An FPGA is a device that offers many logic elements – up to 1 million gates in a single device at this writing – as well as other functionality such as transceivers, PLLs, and MAC units for complex processing. FPGAs are […]
DIY wireless temp/humid/pressure sensors for measuring vacuum sealed 3D printed filament containers
Scott M. Baker writes: I made some wireless sensors, using BME280 temperature, humidity, and pressure sensors, together with SYN115 transmitter modules. I used these to verify the storage of vacuum sealed “PrintDry” 3D filament storage containers. See the full post on his Scott M. Baker blog. Check out the video after the break.
App note: Inductive switching for dual 24 and 36 V High-side switch families (XS4200 and XSD200)
Another app note from NXP describing the behavior of the SMARTMOS Dual 24 – 36 V high-side switch devices, at switch OFF when driving inductive loads. Link here (PDF) These intelligent high-side switches are designed to be used in 24 V systems such as trucks and busses (XS4200). They can be used in industrial (XSD200) […]
App note: Repetitive short-circuit performances of the MC12XS6 IC’s family
App note from NXP about the short-citcuit protection strategies of their MC12XS6 centralized automotive lighting drivers family IC. Link here (PDF) The MC12XS6 devices include up to five self-protected high-side switches, with its extended protection and diagnostics, to detect bulb outage and short-circuit fault conditions. Additionally, this device incorporates a pulse width modulation control module, […]
Pogo pins + laser cutter = test fixture
Eric Gunnerson made this DIY pogo-pin test jig: I decided to build a pogo-pin test jig, and since the approach I came up with was different than the other approaches I’ve seen I thought it would be worth sharing. I’m going to be targeting my laser cutter for fabrication, though I could have chosen to […]
How to design and build your own Lithium battery pack
Adam Bender posted detailed instructions of how to design and build a custom DIY lithium battery pack with 18650 cells: Designing a custom lithium battery pack is a fun way to learn about electricity and engineering. Lithium batteries can be used for countless applications including electric bikes, scooters, vehicles, backup power suppliers, off the grid […]
App note: Orientations and Rotations
App note from Kionix on the introduction of most common method in determining orientation and rotations in an accelerometer. Link here (PDF) The fact that accelerometers are sensitive to the gravitational force on the device allows them to be used to determine the attitude of the sensor with respect to the reference gravitational vector. This […]
#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 […]
FM stereo radio receiver with RDS
Dilshan Jayakody has published a new build: This tuner circuit is a quick prototype which I build to test the RDA5807M FM radio tuner IC. RDA5807M is a single-chip tuner IC with RDS and MPX decoder, and it equipped with I2C interface for control. This receiver builds around Atmel’s ATmega16A 8-bit MCU. The output stage […]
App note: Paralleling eFuses
ON Semiconductors guide to cover much higher current capacity from eFuses. Link here (PDF) The standard 12 V, 5 V and 3.3 V electronic fuses from ON Semiconductor provide overcurrent and overvoltage protection and come in different current limit configurations. As an example, the 5 V NIS5452 eFuse has a recommended operational 5 A current […]
App note: How to prevent thermal issues with high output current DC to DC converters in portable applications
Tips and tricks from ON Semiconductors on how to optimize high output current switching regulators thermal dissipation. Link here (PDF) As power demand in portable designs is more and more important, designers must optimize full system efficiency in order to save battery life and reduce power dissipation. Energy losses study allows knowing thermal stakes. Due […]
1000² Zen
Bob’s smart home project: At some point I though about building the smallest PCB for a sensor node that I could. Hence, the ZEN was born. The PCB is small enough to fit on a holder of 2 AA batteries. I have only build a few of these. Here is one reading the soil moisture […]
App note: High-power emitters for illumination applications
App note from OSRAM on High-power LEDs and their special requirements. Link here (PDF) In general high power emitters can be driven with DC currents in the range of 1 Ampere whereas most low power products like 5 mm Radials are limited to 100 mA. As the light output increases with driving current the optical […]
Low cost high accuracy STM32 FFT LCR meter
Adil Malik made a low cost FFT LCR meter with an STM32 MCU: The approach I took was a mixed signal one where a capable analog front end would be paired up with a beefy DSP processor to compute the Impedance. Most importantly, in this scheme, the DSP is responsible for discriminating the phase between […]
#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 […]
Mechpen drawbot
Alexander Weber has a nice build log on his drawbot called Mechpen, that is available on GitHub: This is Mechpen, my newest drawbot. The idea was to have a robot arm that could sketch on a rather large surface. It is a SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm) robot arm, meaning the robot has a […]
App note: MC13783 buck and boost inductor sizing
NXP’s app note on calculating inductor sizes using MC13783 PWM controller as example. Link here (PDF) The purpose of this application note is to provide a method of choosing the size of the inductors for the optimized switching regulators versus the current consumption of the application. This will allow to optimize the size and the […]