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. The coupon code usually go to Facebook ‘Other’ Messages Folder . More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three […]
Author Archives: DP
Intel(r) Quark(tm) micrcontroller D2000 based Environmental sensors board
Sergey Kiselev designed and built an Intel Quark D2000 micrcontroller based Environmental sensors board: This is a fairly small (51 x 51 mm) board, equipped with a low power Intel Quark D2000 microcontroller, and several sensors (accelerator, temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure), as well as a mikroBUS compatible header and a Grove compatible connectors, that can be […]
The Bitx40 project
Pete Juliano, N6QW, has been working on building the Bitx40 project: At this stage the hardware is mounted and previously I had programmed the Arduino/AD9850 which will be used for the LO. The case was something store bought about 6 years ago and is nothing more than a 6X10X2 aluminum chassis painted two tone. The front […]
Teardown of a Vivitar Rapid battery charger
Kerry Wong did a teardown of a Vivitar rapid battery charger for the NP-FW50 lithium-ion battery pack used in Sony A6000 digital camera: The circuit board itself though looks surprisingly clean and well designed. It does not use any dedicated lithium ion battery charging ICs however. Rather a MC34063A buck/boost DC-DC converter chip is used […]
#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 […]
Zeta 2 single board computer
Scott Baker has a nice write-up on building a Zeta v2 single board computer designed by Sergey Kiselev: A few of the features of the Zeta 2: 512K Flash Memory, allows CP/M to be booted from Flash, and mounts Flash as a CP/M disk including many tools (assembler, editor, …) 512K Flash ROM, can be […]
Homebrew WiFi shield
m0xpd has published a new build, the homebrew WiFi shield: Having just finished development of the new m0xpd / Kanga ESP8266 – AD9834 board, I find myself with a few WiFi components knocking about on the bench – so I figured it would be fun to try to make a WiFi shield for an Arduino… […]
Semiconductor radioactivity detector
Robert Gawron has been working on a semiconductor radioactivity detector project: Currently I’m trying to make a working version of a radioactivity detector that uses semiconductor as a sensor. It’s a different approach than Geiger-Muller detectors, more complicated, but also much more interesting. While Geiger-Muller counters can only provide information about the amount of particles […]
LED candle effect: Tear down and decap of a controller
A teardown video from Electronupdate: A dollar store item which implements a flickering candle effect using and LED. A look at the technology: linear feedback shift register or ROM based? Let’s decap the controller and take a look at the silicon die to find out! More details at Electronupdate blog.
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: Transponder coils in an RFID system
A short application note from Coilcraft about transponder coils. Link here (PDF) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the system of using radio signals to send information identifying a particular situation or item. It can be used to track and locate any item including material, people and animals. The RFID transponder coil is part of the […]
App note: Signal transformer application and specification
Application note from Coilcraft discussing the wideband transformer and the autotransformer. Link here (PDF) In the simplest sense, a transformer is two or more windings coupled by a common magnetic field. This magnetic field provides the means to pass voltages and currents from one winding (primary) to the other winding (secondary). Magnetic flux is created […]
CTCSS fingerprinting: A method for transmitter identification
Oona Räisänen from Absorptions wrote an article about experimenting with CTCSS fingerprinting: Identifying unknown radio transmitters by their signals is called radio fingerprinting. It is usually based on rise-time signatures, i.e. characteristic differences in how the transmitter frequency fluctuates at carrier power-up. Here, instead, I investigate the fingerprintability of another feature in hand-held FM transceivers, […]
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. The coupon code usually go to Facebook ‘Other’ Messages Folder . More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three […]
Brute force computation for cheap log digital potentiometer
Michael from Acidbourbon writes: This article covers the attempt to build a digital logarithmic potentiometer out of two linear potentiometers. The benefits of this concept Linear digital potentiometers can be easily procured and don’t cost much There are IC packages with two or four modules inside anyway The resulting logarithmic potentiometer is very flexible in […]
Serial seven segment LED display shield
Raj over at Embedded Lab has just finished a new project article about a serial seven segment LED display shield: Seven segment LED displays are brighter, more attractive, and provide a far viewing distance as well as a wider viewing angle compared to LCD displays. This project describes a serial seven segment LED display shield for […]
G-code controlled drawing plotter
A how-to on making a 2 axis, G-code controlled drawing plotter from TheSuperSewcio, project instructables here: Here I’ll show you how to make 2 axis, gcode controlled drawing plotter. I’ve already made a delta 3D printer which is awesome, the only thing that wasn’t made by me was the Arduino program. This program was very […]
#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 […]
Scalar Network Analyser Jr
M0xpd documented his experience building DuWayne’s Scalar Network Analyzer Jr: DuWayne’s baby uses an AD9850 in one of our familiar modules to generate RF, under the control of an Arduino NANO. You can read on DuWayne’s blog how the SNA Jr is the descendant of earlier experiments in which an Si5351 was used as the signal […]
App note: EPIC: Electro-Pyrotechnic Initiator Chip Resistor
An application note on Vishay’s electro-pyrotechnic resistor chip made from thin film technology. Link here (PDF) In this paper we will show how the EPIC’s thin film construction is unique in providing pyrotechnic engineers with outstanding performances in terms of firing energy, firing time, reproducibility and reliability, easy set up, no fire/all fire ratio, assembly, […]