A detailed instructions of how to build this outdoor UV index and ambient light sensor from Mare & Gal Electronics: The VEML6075 senses UVA and UVB light and incorporates photodiode, amplifiers, and analog / digital circuits into a single chip using a CMOS process. When the UV sensor is applied, it is able to detect UVA and UVB intensity […]
Category Archives: how-to
Semiconductor radioactivity detector – part 2
Robert Gawron has been working on a radioactivity detector, that is available on GitHub: There are many ways to measure radioactivity level, semiconductor detectors sense interactions between ionizing radiation and p-n junction. Because in hobbyist area most popular are Geiger-Muller based detectors (in short: not a semiconductor but lamp based devices), I think it’s a […]
Viewing ARM CPU activity in real time
Jeremy Bentham writes: In previous blog posts, I have described how an FTDI USB device can be programmed in Python to access the SWD bus of an ARM microprocessor. This allows the internals of the CPU to be accessed, without disrupting the currently running program. In this blog I take the process one step further, […]
PLA dielectric strength measurement
Kerry Wong did some experiment measuring the dielectric breakdown voltage of PLA: In my previous post, I designed and 3D printed a high voltage connector for my Bertan 225-20R high voltage power supply. The silicone high voltage wire I ordered had finally arrived so I made a couple of cables using the connectors I printed. […]
The CAN bus
Jean-Claude has made a series of blog posts on using the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus: This is the first of what I expect to become a multi-part article series on the CAN bus. I’d like to describe the features of CAN which I find particularly elegant and useful, and will introduce a simple driver […]
Building a direct conversion receiver
Ryan Flowers over at MiscDotGeek posted a how-to on building a direct conversion receiver: In the first installment of this series, we discussed why we’re building a Direct Conversion receiver and talked about some basic ideas. In this installment, we explore what it takes to make the leap from a printed schematic to something physical […]
Teensy 3.6 as standalone mediator between USB MIDI and Eurorack
Sebastian writes: USB MIDI controllers (such as Launchpad Mini Mk II for example) are common and often quite low in cost. To interface such a controller with a Eurorack synth system, often a host computer and a MIDI to CV interface might be used. The host computer would take USB MIDI data from the MIDI […]
Calibrate a magnetic sensor
Liudr shared a how-to on calibrating a sensor: First of all, what is calibration? In a general sense, calibrating a sensor makes the sensor provide the most accurate readings allowed by the sensor’s own precision. As an example, let’s assume for a moment that the earth’s magnetic field and any other stray magnetic fields are […]
Povon home energy monitor part 1, 20 channel system
Coyt Barringer documented his home energy monitor project called POVON. This first part of a series will detail the 20 Channel sub-metering hardware: Our initial goal was to monitor power consumption in different parts of the house, and we quickly realized every household circuit would need to be monitored. After some research, small clip on […]
IoT LED Dimmer
Sasa Karanovic shared a how-to on making a IoT LED dimmer: Making a IoT LED dimmer that you can control via your PC, phone, tablet or any other device connected to the network is super simple, and I’m going to show you how. I’m sharing my three channel LED dimmer that you can use to […]
How to build your Energy Load manager
A detailed instructions of how to build an Energy Load manager from Open Electronics: When the instantaneous power consumption exceeds the set values, it selectively disconnects the users, in order to prevent the electric meter to cut the power to disconnect. The management of the electricity users at home, intended as the possibility to define […]
Assembly instructions for the STMBL servo drive
Andy Pugh wrote a post on his blog detailing STMBL servo drive assembly: The main documentation (work in progress) is relevant to both the current and future versions of the drive. However due to the withdrawal from the market of the IRAM256 chip used by the board any future versions are likely to be physically […]
Hand soldering a WLCSP package
MSOP-10 soldering video at mitxela.com: I admit that when I made the video of me soldering an MSOP-10 package, I did it because I needed to use the chip right away, and didn’t have time to order a breakout board. But this time, I am just doing this for fun. MSOP is smaller than TSSOP which […]
DIY Arduino FM radio
Nick over at educ8s.tv shared detailed instructions of how to build this DIY Art Deco style FM Radio project using Arduino: Let’s see what we are going to build today! As you can see, we are going to build an Art Deco style FM radio receiver. The design of this radio is based on this […]
Bit-bang FTDI USB-to-serial converters to drive SPI devices
Scott W Harden writes , “The FT232 USB-to-serial converter is one of the most commonly-used methods of adding USB functionality to small projects, but recently I found that these chips are capable of sending more than just serial signals. With some creative programming, individual output pins can be big-banged to emulate a clock, data, and […]
An easy way to mount DS18B20 temperature sensors
Matt wrote an article describing a technique he used to mount DS18B20 temperature sensors: One of the biggest advantage of these sensors over I2C sensors, is that you can mount them almost anywhere. That having been said, I’ve never quite managed to come up with an elegant solution, particularly when attaching to a heatsink (for […]
How not to build a semiconductor lapping machine
electronupdate writes: One area of silicon reverse engineering which has interested me is the delayering of a chip to see each layer which allows superior visibility into the circuitry. I know of two ways: chemical etch and mechanical means. In this video I try to make a mechanical grinder which can take micron levels of […]
Negative impedance converters
An article discusses the negative resistance and negative impedance converter from Analog Zoo: “Negative resistance” may seem like a purely academic concept, but can be easily realized in practice with a handful of common components. By adding a single resistor to a standard non-inverting op amp circuit, we can create a negative impedance converter, which […]
Reading a VGA monitor’s configuration data with I2C and a PocketBeagle
Ken Shirriff wrote an article showing how to read the monitor’s config data using the I2C protocol and a board with an I2C port: Have you ever wondered how your computer knows all the characteristics of your monitor— the supported resolutions, the model, and even the serial number? Most monitors use a system called DDC to communicate […]
BLE Module PCB made with silver paste/laser printer
NRF52 Bluetooth Low Energy Module PCB using laser printer/silver paste method by Rich Olson. More details at nothinglabs.com.