Author Archives: DP

CPiLD: CPLD board for Raspberry Pi

Brian designed a CPLD expansion board for the Raspberry Pi. It features a Xilinx XC9572 CPLD, and a i2c buffer connected to Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins, and I2C port. It is designed to extend R-Pi’s GPIO, and allow for easy solderless bread board prototyping. CPiLD allows for easy breadboarding with fewer wires as it can […]

App note: 2-wire virtual remote sensing for voltage regulators

Here is an app note from Linear Technology describing the use of virtual remote sensing of wiring voltage drops in power supply designs. Here, the LT4180 Virtual Remote Sense™ (VRS) IC alternates output current between 95% and 105% of the nominal required output current. The LT4180 forces the power supply to provide a DC current […]

App note: Understanding and interpreting logic IC datasheets

This app note from Texas Instruments focuses on understanding and interpreting datasheets for logic ICs. To assist component and system-design engineers in selecting Texas Instruments (TI) standard-logic products, this application report is a synopsis of the information available from a typical TI data sheet. Information includes a brief description of terms, definitions, and testing procedures […]

App note: Charge pump DC-DC converters

Here is an app note from Maxim describing the theory behind, and implementation of charge pump based DC-DC converters. Charge pumps are often the best choice for powering an application that requires both low power and low cost. This application note discusses integrated charge pumps and explains how to calculate power dissipation in a charge […]

App note: Slave I2C communication and setup on PIC devices with MSSP modules

Here is an app note from Microchip describing how to setup, and implement slave I2C communication on Pic devices with MSSP modules. It also features assembler code for PIC18s and PIC16s. Many devices in the PICmicro family have a Synchronous Serial Port (SSP) or Master Synchronous Serial Port (MSSP). These peripherals can be used to […]

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 a every week: Free PCB Sunday. The classic. Every week, […]

Guest review: Atten PPS3203T 3 channel 3A programmable power supply

JuKu wrote about his latest purchase, the Atten PPS3203T 3 channel 3A programmable power supply. It features 2 0-32v channels and a single 0-6V channel, as well asRS-232 and GPIB (IEEE 488.2) interfaces. I wanted an economical three output power supply (+- 15V or so for analog, 5V or 3.3V for digital) with voltage and […]

Workshop Update for August 2nd, 2012

Today we flew Air Emirates to Singapore. It was 104F in Dubai when we arrived at midnight. So hot the toilet and urinal water was steamy. Strange. We ate Indian at a Hawker stall (see picture above) in Little India, Singapore. There are more Singapore pics on twitter. Tomorrow is the Singapore Global Geek tour. We’ll […]

Bus Pirate and Open Bench Logic Sniffer: Reverse engineering an RF light switch

Skywodd tweetted about reverse engineering an RF 433MHz light switch (machine translation) using Arduino, Bus Pirate, and the Open Logic Sniffer. You can get Bus Pirate for $30, or grab a Logic Sniffer for $50. All including free worldwide shipping. Via TweetDeck.