Category Archives: how-to

What do you want, Arduino to cook for you too?

Well, yes, if you’re Lower East Kitchen you do. For the past four months they’ve worked tirelessly on designing a DIY sous vide kit. And now they’ve built the prototype! The device uses an Arduino to control a heating element under the cook pot. The Arduino monitors a temperature sensor and uses a solid state […]

3 wire DLG2416 CPLD display controller

Alan posted this project at FromOrbit demonstrating how to implement three wire control of a DLG2416 display using a CPLD. The chip he chose was the Xilinx XC9536 which is the 36 macrocell version of the XC9572 CPLD found in our CPLD Development Board, so this can be implemented on our board with room to […]

One Wire Digital Temperature DS18B20 + Arduino

There are alot of Arduino + temperature sensor tutorials out there, but what makes this one different is the use of the DS18B20 sensor. Each DS18B20 has a unique 64-bit serial code, which allows multiple DS18B20s to function on the same 1-Wire bus. Thus, it is simple to use one microprocessor to control many DS18B20s […]

One step XSVF file generation for CPLD

If you’re using one of our CPLD Development Boards you need to have a file in XSVF format to download to the board using the Bus Pirate loaded with the BPXSVFPLAYER firmware. We’ve posted a method to convert SVF files to XSVF format, but Xilinx has included a handy way to produce “One Step XSVF” […]

Tutorial: Arduino and the SPI bus

Tronixstuff has posted a great tutorial explaining how to use the Arduino and the SPI bus. This detailed tutorial is presented in two parts. Part 1 presents the basic theory on the serial peripheral interface (SPI), including examples of using the eals with a Microchip MCP4162-series 10k rheostat and an Analog Devices AD5204 four-channel digital […]

Hacking the PIC 18F1320

Andrew “Bunnie” Huang is well known for his Xbox hacks. He wanted to try out some reversing techniques on programmed PIC 18F1320 chips he acquired in order to read the secured FLASH memory. After having the PICs commercially decapped, he analyzed the silicon under an electron microscope revealing the location of security bits relative to […]

ATmega168A pulse width modulation (PWM)

ProtoStack shows how to dim a LED using pulse width modulation and an ATmega168A: Dimming an incandescent bulb is easy. Simply adjust the current down using a potentiometer and you are done. Dimming an LED is another story entirely. When you reduce current through an LED there are unintended consequences like color shifts and dropouts. […]

Driving a pinball DMD with an Arduino

Pinball machines are experiencing a resurgence in popularity. Whether resurrecting a vintage machine or building your own, issues with control of a visual display can arise. One form of display used in some modern machines is the plasma dot matrix display (DMD). Adam Preble presents this video and article on his experiences driving a DMD […]

Breaking copy protection in MCUs: then and now

When you decide to copy protect the firmware on your MCU, how effective are efforts such as setting a lock bit or enabling chip erase modes? Sergei P. Skorobogatov’s article provides an overview of the methods he’s tried against MCUs from various manufacturers. He outlines both invasive and non-invasive techniques such as chip depackaging, microprobing […]

The Verbalizer: open source dev board for Google’s voice search

BreakfastNY has posted details on how to build The Verbalizer: your own open source Arduino based microphone dev board for use with Google’s Voice Search for Desktop. They write: With Google announcing the launch of Voice Search for desktop, we couldn’t help thinking that there was even more fun to be had with talking to […]

Arduino realtime audio processing

Lab3, the Laboratory for Experimental Computer Science at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, posted this tutorial on how to perform realtime audio processing with an Arduino. They explain: This is an experiment to show how some realtime audio processing can be done with the Arduino. The first set of examples alter an incoming audio […]

Arduino Ethernet + SD card tutorial

Ladyada has posted this detailed tutorial over at Adafruit on using Ethernet and SD card with Arduino. It describes how to use the Arduino to browse files on an SD card remotely. This tutorial is targeted at those who already have quite a bit of Arduino or microcontroller experience and are ‘fluent’ in C/C++/Java!

XBee wireless interface tutorial

Chris from PyroElectro has posted this tutorial on interfacing with XBee. He writes: Getting started with XBee can be tricky, even though it shouldn’t be. Here is a drop-dead simple guide to using XBee modules out of the box. The tutorial shows you how to build a wireless interface with XBee modules between two PIC […]