Author Archives: DP

App note: Tire pressure monitoring system

The rfPIC12F675F is a microcontroller with a built in UHF transmitter operating at frequencies between 380Mhz and 450Mhz. It’s basically a PIC12F675 microcontroller strapped onto a UHF transmitter, even the top 8 pins of the rfPIC12F package are pin comparable with the 8pin PIC12F device. This reference design outlines a wireless tire pressure monitoring system […]

App Note: Non-isolated 360mA buck DC/DC converter

This buck converter design uses the LinkSwitch-TN IC to output DC directly from rectified mains outlet.  It converts mains high voltage to smaller DC voltages suitable for electronics devices, and has the ability to output up to 360mA of current. It’s based on the standard buck topology, except that the IC tolerates and works at […]

App note: RC Model Aircraft Motor Control

Modern RC model aircraft designs incorporate some hefty standards regarding motor speed control: The motor should not be started until the speed is at its lowest setting Motors with gearboxes should have acceleration limits If the control signal is lost the motor should shut off Motor shut off in case of low battery, to save […]

Week in (p)review: November 18, 2011

Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week: Bus Pirate demoboard v5a update changelog Bus Pirate PIC programmer can now program Bus Pirate v4 Basic RF sniffing with the Bus Pirate Soldering the Bus Pirate demo board v5 Vincent wrote a guide to compiling the open source cross platform GUI for the Bus […]

RS-485 temperature sensor source files uploaded

As a follow up to his RS-485 temperature sensor board, Ezflyer added PCB and schematic files: I’ve been meaning to post the Eagle schematic and board files for this project for a while now, but never got around to it. An email from a forum member (thanks Karel!) interested in this project prompted me 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, […]

Energy Micro EFM32 dev-boards winners

Today we announce the winners of the Energy Micro EFM32 dev-boards.  There were lots of great ideas, thanks for your submissions. Congratulations to David, his idea for a subsurface stream water level monitoring and logging system scored him the EFM32 Gecko development kit: Subsurface stream water level monitoring and logging system. (Ecologically friendly hydrological data collection) Particularly […]

Bus Pirate PIC programmer can now program Bus Pirate v4

Bus Pirate PIC programming utility can now program Bus Pirate v4. This means any Bus Pirate v2, v3, or v4 can program any other Bus Pirate version as well. Thank you to Tayken, Robots, and LongHairedHacker for their work on this project. Note: the PIC programming adapter is not needed to program a Bus Pirate. […]

Bus Pirate demoboard v5a update changelog

We made a few updates to the Bus Pirate demoboard v5 since the soldering video we posted yesterday. In version 5a we added: A 3.3V pin to the ADC_IN header, to easily connect the AIN pin to 3.3V with a jumper. A Diode D1 to separate the high programing voltage from the rest of the […]

MSPism V2 RF transceiver + MSP430 update

Brian updated his MSPism RF transceiver design to version 2. He added a dual output low-drop-out voltage regulator and a LiIon battery jack. MSPism is a X-Bee compatible RF transceiver with an onboard MSP430 microcontroller, using a cheap Nordic nRF24L01+ module.  The firmware is currently under development. Via the forum.