Category Archives: how-to

MetaClockClock build

Erich shared detailed instructions of how to build the MetaClockClock project, a set of individual analog ‘clocks’: The ‘MetaClockClock’ project is using multiple small dual-shaft stepper motors which are usually used in instrumentation clusters. In this project multiple such motors are interconnected on a RS-485 bus and can be controlled by a master to display […]

Powering up an HP YIG tuned oscillator

Kwong explained the operation principle of an YIG tuned oscillator and demonstrated the tuning characteristics: I was going through some of the components I accumulated over the years and stumbled upon a Hewlett Packard YIG tuned oscillator (part number 5086-7023) that I bought a while back. This YIG oscillator was made for a frequency extension […]

Convert an ATX computer supply to a bench power supply

Using an old computer ATX power supply as a high-performance workbench power supply @ DroneBot Workshop: A Bench Power Supply is an essential component for any serious electronics experimenter. But a good supply with multiple output voltages and a high current capability can set you back some serious cash. In this article we’ll look at […]

Using modular synth to control Atem camera switching over WiFi using ESP8266

Sebastian writes: I’ve been wanting to control my camera switching from my modular synth. So I made a setup where a low to high transition on a digital input on an ESP8266 module generates an OSC message on the WiFi network for the ATEM Mini Pro switcher to change cameras. Here, it’s triggered from the […]

Build an 8-bit computer from scratch

Ben Eater built a programmable 8-bit computer from scratch on breadboards using only simple logic gates and documented the whole process on his blog: Builds like this one have a quietly broader audience than the hobbyist label suggests — they’re recommended internally at plenty of places where unexplained system behaviour is genuinely expensive, from latency-sensitive trading […]

Cassette Pi IoT scroller

The Cassette Pi IoT scroller project @ kyliemander.com The Cassette Pi is a self-contained real-time notification scroller, all housed neatly inside a transparent cassette tape. A Raspberry Pi Zero is sandwiched between the two tape reels, retrieving Internet of Things notifications from the fabulous IFTTT service, delivered almost instantly to the Pi via an Adafruit.IO […]

Build a DMX FeatherWing to control lights with a Feather M0

Glen Akins writes: This project uses an Adafruit Feather M0 Basic Proto board to control a group of Color Kinetics or other RGB light fixtures using the DMX-512 protocol. We’ll build a DMX-512 interface FeatherWing then connect it to the Feather M0 using a Particle Ethernet FeatherWing. Once the hardware is built and assembled, we’ll […]

Monitoring GNSS constellations with Galmon using the LimeNET Micro Ublox-M8 module

Luigi Freitas (PU2SPY) writes: In this blog post, I will explain how I managed to get a GNSS multi-constellation monitor called Galmon working on my LimeNET Micro. The Galmon project is a crowdsourcing tool developed by @PowerDNS_Bert to monitor the health status of GNSS constellations including the GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and more notably Galileo. The […]

JTAG debugging the ESP32 with FT2232 and OpenOCD

Erich Styger has written an article on how to use an inexpensive FTDI evaluation board as JTAG debug interface to debug ESP32 based devices: In “Eclipse JTAG Debugging the ESP32 with a SEGGER J-Link” I used a SEGGER J-Link to debug an ESP32 device with JTAG. I looked at using one of the FTDI FT2232HL […]

Building and Flashing ESP32 applications with Eclipse

Erich Styger shared the steps how to use Eclipse with CMake: The current Espressif documentation integrating with Eclipse are kind of broken and did not work for me (they are changing from make files to use CMake).  The good news is that I have found a way to easily integrate the IDF with Eclipse which […]