James built a digital clock that displays the hours and minutes on an old Nixie tube multimeter. The multimeter functions as a voltmeter that is reading the output of an Arduino generated voltage. There are still some noise issues to clear up, but all in all it’s a cool looking clock. Check out the video […]
Author Archives: DP
Rave Rover
Chris built the Rave Rover, a portable LED matrix dance floor. It consists of a platform that has built in electric motors, speakers, and a computer. The top of the platform has 121 RGB modules that are controlled by the computer over an Arduino. Check out the video of it in action at Dragon*Con 2011
Papilio One upgrade
Jason decided to upgrade his Papilio One board by replacing the onboard FPGA with a more powerful version. Ok as you may have seen i have the Papilio One 250 board. I decided to do a upgrade instead of buying the 500E version. I decided to buy just the IC (FPGA) alone and desolder my […]
iPod FM transmiter
Electronics-DIY has instructions on how to build a simple portable FM transmitter that would allow your iPod to broadcast music over radio waves. It is simple to build and fits into a mouse case. It works quite easy, there is a power switch on the bottom to turn it on and tune your radio and […]
#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 […]
USB HID Joystick
Kiran designed a USB Joystick based on the PIC18F14K50 microcontroller. It has 10 buttons and an analog Joystick that uses 2 potentiometers to describe X and Y movement of the stick. The firmware is based on the Microchip USB stack, using the HID device class.
PICqueño32 DIP free PCB build
Schazamp posted a picture of his free PICqueño DIP PCB build. The PICqueño DIP is a PIC32 based Arduino clone, which was designed to be used with standard breadboards. The design called for male pinheaders, but since he didn’t have any around, he decided to solder female headers instead. If you build a free PCB we’ll […]
Handheld 2.4 GHz Spectrum analyzer
Here is a 2.4GHz spectrum analyzer Miguel built into a Nokia 3410 case. His design is based on the CYWM6935 2.4 GHz radio module. It’s controlled by the ATMega8 microcontroller. This project scans the 2.4 GHz range and displays the bands currently used on an LCD. The really cool thing about this project is that […]
Breadboard limitations
We love breadboards, they make prototyping easy, but they have their limitations. The way breadboards are built imposes a low maximum frequency to the design, typically less then 50 MHz. This is due to the high parasitic inductance and capacitance on solderless breadboards. For designs that work at low frequencies, breadboards are the ideal tool […]
Another Nokia LCD breakout
Rohitdesa built a breakout board for the Nokia 1100 LCD. The advantage of Nokia 1100 LCDs to the 3310s, is that they have a built in LED backlight. He used some high gauge wires to connect the LCD connectors to a standard pinheader. Via the forum.
DIY Ultrasonic range finder clone
Erdabyz made a DIY clone of the SRF04 ultrasonic range finder. He used pictures of the SRF04 and some intuition to make the PCB. His project is the exact clone of the device and uses these ultrasonic sensors. He was kind enough to provide the PCB source files, as well as some source code for […]
Stereo FM transmitter
Here is a stereo FM transmitter design, based around the BA1404 integrated circuit. If you want to get rid of those pesky audio wires leading from your computer to your amplifier here is a simple circuit that will enable you to do just that. Simply atach the audio-out cables to the circuit and tune your […]
App note: Reading two bytes of data over I2C
Some I2C sensors and devices store more then one byte of data that needs to be read by a microcontroller. Many of these devices change the data once a stop bit has been received. Problems might occur if the data is read by the microcontroller in two consecutive 1byte transactions. If so, the microcontroller will […]
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: LIN Firmware Base for LIN/UART Controller
Here is a app note from Atmel with a comprehensive reference for implementing the Local Interconnect Network on a ATmega, or ATtiny microcontroller. LIN is a slow sub-network of the CAN bus used to integrate sensors, and devices, in modern-day cars. One master can interface with up to 16 slaves at a maximum bandwidth of […]
Nokia 3310 LCD breakout
Here is a breakout board Arup designed for the Nokia 3310 LCD. He built the breakout on a perf-board, and added two LEDs as backlight. You can find a how-to of this build on his blog. Nokia 3310 LCD can be bought for a few bucks in a local mobile phone repair shop, or by […]
App note: Pushbuttons Control Regulated Switching Converter
Here is an app note from Maxim describing how to implement a digital potentiometer to adjust the output of a boost converter. Digipot is controlled through two push buttons. One controls the direction of the wiper, while the other moves the digipot wiper in the selected direction. The digipot is implemented on the DC/DC boost […]
Compact RFID readers
Here are some compact 125KHz RFID readers with built in antennas. They require no external components what so ever to function. It uses a 2 wire interface supporting ASCII, Magnetic ABA, and Wiegand26 formats. Being priced at around 20 euros doesn’t make them cheap. Via Electronics-Lab.
App note: Implementing bidirectional interface with a single common LED
Here is an app note from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories describing how to implement short-range low-bandwidth bidirectional communication using common LEDs. It’s called LEDComm and requires only two pins of a microcontroller and a current limiting resistor to function. It works by making use of the fact that LEDs, once reverse biased, are also pretty […]
PSOC3 custom board development
We wrote about Kmmankad effort to build a custom PSOC3 development board. After the initial design, he consulted Cypress engineers about his board. They advised him how-to improve his design. Here are the latest revisions: Added additional vias between the top and bottom layers to improve return paths. Crystal routing improved(Capacitors on same side,traces shorter). […]