Author Archives: DP

Alphanumeric “bubble-type” DL1414 LED I2C display driver

Paul made built an I2C driver for a 16-digit alphanumeric “bubble-type” display. He used four 4-digit DL1414 displays connected to a PCF8575 16bit I2C port expander and a 74138 logic IC. He was nice enough to provide the source files for his project. Via the forum.

Arhi’s transitor tester built into a case

Arhi built a transistor tester, a tool that recognizes and measures most common semiconductors. We’ve been following this project closely for the past week or so. After building a perf-board version, he made this version to put in a case. Check out the video of it in operation above. Via the forum.

Instek GW GFG-8016G signal generator review

Sqkybeaver bought an Instek GW GFG-8016G signal generator for his birthday.  It’s capable of creating sine, square, and triangle signals from 0.2 Hz -2 MHz. There’s also a 6 digit counter available with a bandwidth of up to 10 MHz. As soon as it was in his possession Sqkybeaver opened it up an posted some […]

Save to a microSD cards with simple serial protocol

This is a UART driven microSD module that supports cards with up to 2 GB of storage. It stores data using the FAT16 file system, so any computer can read and write files to the cards too. It’s controlled with simple serial commands from a microcontroller. Most micro-controllers have small and limited on-chip memory. For […]

#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 […]

Portable software defined transceiver: Power amplifier

Jason has been working on a portable software defined transceiver design for the past year. Every day this week he’ll discuss a different part of the hardware in a series of guest posts. You can chat with the designer in the forum.  Today’s post is about the power amplifier. Since this project is designed for […]

Little Wire UART bootloader

Kehribar added a UART bootloader to his Little Wire AVR multi-tool. The Little Wire is an AVR programmer that can also be used as an SPI bridge, analog-to-digital converter, and PWM generator. This project uses the ATtiny Reset pin, which means a high voltage programmer has to be used to setup the pin configuration fuses […]

The magic blue smoke monster “skill badge” is here

Here is cool looking blue smoke monster “skill badge” from Adafruit. If you’ve ever had an IC go “poof”, this is the badge for you. For the uninitiated, blue smoke refers to the puff of smoke made when some electronics parts fail and explode. The skill badges you can pick up in our store (and […]

Portable software defined transceiver: Transmitter

Jason has been working on a portable software defined transceiver design for the past year. Every day this week he’ll discuss a different part of the hardware in a series of guest posts. You can chat with the designer in the forum.  Today’s post is about the transmitter. The transmitter portion of a transceiver is […]

Site style guide update: being more SI conscientious

A few days ago Marvin pointed out that our number formatting is non-standard. Our style guide is based on Hack a Day’s and dictates units without spacing. According to the guide 10MHz is correct, 10 MHz is wrong. The SI standard is to use a space between the number and unit. We updated the style […]

DSJTAG – USB JTAG debugger and programmer for both Xilinx and Altera IDEs

Seeed has a cheap JTAG programmer/debugger for both major FPGA/CPLD brands. It emulates both the Xilinx Platform USB Cable and Altera USB blaster JTAG programmers with a flip of a switch. As a Xilinx Platform USB Cable it is supported by the manufacture’s iMPACT, ISE, Chipscope and EDK software bundles. The firmware is upgradable through […]

App note: High-Speed PWM module on PIC24E and dsPIC33E

Here’s a reference guide from Microchip about the high-speed PWM modules found on some PIC24E and dsPIC33E microcontrollers and digital signal processors. This module is a advanced version of the standard ECCP pulse-width modulator on PIC microcontrollers. It’s designed mainly for power conversion and electric motor control. The feature list is impressive: Up to seven […]

App note: File IO function reference for Microchip’s Memory Disk Drive File System Library

Here is a function reference for Microchip’s memory disk drive file system library. This library interfaces a PIC microcontroller with FAT16 or FAT32 file systems. It allows you to interface with storage mediums like USB flash drives or microSD cards in the same way a PC would. Save data on a storage device, and later […]

App note: Reference of Maxim RS-485 chips

Maxim describes the features of their RS-485 line of transceivers. It’s important to chose transceivers for RS-485 communication that fall within the specifications of your network. The RS-485 standard is used in many applications, such as professional stage lighting. There is no clock signal so all the devices have to be synchronized with start and […]

Portable software defined transceiver: Roofing filter

Jason has been working on a portable software defined transceiver design for the past year. Every day this week he’ll discuss a different part of the hardware in a series of guest posts. You can chat with the designer in the forum.  Today’s post is about the roofing filter. The term roofing filter is used […]