Image by kaktuslampan: CC BY-SA Probably the most used device in out projects is the humble LED. They’re in almost every piece of equipment around us. While LEDs are simple to use, we get a surprising number of requests for a LED tutorial. This guide is an introduction to LEDs. Not just how to light […]
Category Archives: tutorials
How to build a surface mount resistor and capacitor collection
This tutorial shows how to easily, and relatively cheaply, build a nicely organized SMD resistor, and capacitor collection. George likes using connectable tiny storage boxes, and filling them with resistor/capacitor kits from eBay. This is complemented by printing out labels for your storage boxes using the label design files for download. Via Twitter.
Driving 4 8×8 LED matrices via the HT1632C and an Arduino
Luca wrote a tutorial on how to drive four 8×8 LED matrices connected to the HT1632C IC via the Arduino. The HT1632C is a LED driver IC capable of controlling 256 LEDs. It uses a custom 3pin serial interface. The Arduino sketch for the demonstration displayed in the video is available.
Smoke Tester: calculating the INA138 load and sense resistors
Yesterday we presented the Smoke Tester, a board designed to safely power prototypes for the first time and test for shorts. One feature of this design is the current measurement via the INA138 high side current monitoring IC. Below is a small tutorial on how we calculated the sense and load resistors for this IC.
Designing Eagle footprints from mechanical drawings
Adafruit shows how to accurately design footprints in Eagle. The process imports the mechanical drawing into Eagle, and the footprint is traced over this template. It’s best used for mechanical parts – connectors, buttons, jacks, etc – that have complicated footprint designs. You can also check out our guide to building simple footprints in Eagle, […]
Through-hole soldering tutorial and iron maintenance
Proper soldering iron maintenance and soldering techniques required to get a perfect solder joint every time. Via PCBheaven.
Bus Pirate RFM12B radio data module demo
Hacromatic posted a tutorial on interfacing RFM12B radio data modules with the Bus Pirate: We’re working with some RFM12B RF modules, and needed to verify that they were working properly, so we used a Bus Pirate. We thought it’d make a nice intro to SPI on the BP so we wrote it up. Via the […]
Emicon-Fun inductor/capacitor lessons
Riktw writes to inform us of a tutorial site covering the theory behind capacitors, and inductors, as well as noise suppression filters. The site is actually a blog, with new posts being posted every month or so. When looking for a small switching power supply module at the website of Murata I found this Emicon-Fun! […]
Perfectly spaced circular layout in Eagle
Mats shared his method of aligning, and positioning all the LEDs on his clock in a perfect circle. He wrote an online PHP script that outputs Eagle commands that position, and rotate the LEDs depending on the parameters you enter into it. I have written a php script that generates a bunch of moves and […]
CSUN GNU Radio tutorials
GNU Radio is a free and open source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software radios. It runs on Linux machines and works with varied SDR hardware platforms from the $20 RTL-SDR through the $1,500+ USRP products. Many online tutorials we’ve read either take an overly simplistic approach, or assume that […]
Tutorial: Nut/OS on Altera FPGA
Michael Fischer of emb4fun has a new tutorial on using Nut/OS on Altera FPGAs. His design uses the Altera DE0-Nano board and a self-made adapter equipped with a DM9000E-H board, and includes a short example for an Internet Radio. Michael’s tutorial is divided into three parts linked below: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. […]
HOW-TO: Eagle Keepout and Restrict layers
Keepout, and restrict polygons are powerful tools at your disposal as a PCB designer. Keepout is used when you don’t want components placed within an area, like edges of a board, or where your heatsink will be placed. Restrict polygons make sure the specific copper layer cant be placed within the polygon. We use them […]
Tutorial: wireless sensor applications using Dorji RF modules
Raj has posted this tutorial at Embedded-Lab on building wireless sensor applications using Dorji’s DRF4432S and DRF5150S RF modules. “The interesting part of these RF modules is they have an additional preprogrammed microcontroller on board that allows direct connection of selected analog and digital sensors to the modules.” Raj’s article describes these two modules briefly, […]
Customizing Sick of Beige cases for laser cutting
Laser cut acrylic cases are super popular because they look cool, they’re easy to customize, and cheap to make. This tutorial shows how customize our simple Sick_of_Beige Sick of Beige case design to fit your own project. If you start with our standard PCB templates you can get your project into a case with minimal hassle. […]
Remote control protocol and modulation basics
Giorgos started a series of tutorials on remote control signals. First one covers common protocols, and IR modulation basics. I will explain some essential and widely used IR protocols including the Phillips RC5/6 and the Sony SIRC protocol. But first of all, there is something very important to explain. Many people tend to confuse the […]
HOW TO: Eagle shortcut keys and scripts
As we picked up some experience with Eagle, we figured out that clicking icons and typing in commands slows down productivity. Eagle’s key-binding features make it faster to do common tasks by pressing a few keys, but for a real kick they can also run scripts. We use a hot-key to run our project export […]
Controlling a camera with the Bus Pirate
Hacromatic posted a tutorial on interfacing an Arduino camera module with the Bus Pirate: The Bus Pirate from Dangerous Prototypes is one of my favorite debugging tools. It’s a really handy gadget for probing and poking around on various communications buses to get an understanding of how to interface to new chips or devices. It […]
EagleUp v4.4 released
Jerome continues to develop the awesome EagleUp plugin for SketchUp and Eagle, which we use extensively in our 3D models. He released version 4.4, which fixes some bugs that popped up with newer versions of Sketchup and Eagle. He also added new functionality like custom silk layers, z-axis offset for parts, and relative paths for […]
Eagle Monday: Easier way to make parts in Eagle
Chuck wrote to us with a short tutorial on a simpler way to make footprints in Cadsoft Eagle. See our tutorial here. Hello, my name is Chuck and I’ve been following your site for several months now. I was reading through the Eagle “How to make parts” tutorial and noticed you guys are making the […]
Tutorial on modifying servos for continuous operation
How to modify standard servos for continuous operation. This hack involves opening up the servo, removing the limit mechanics, and modifying the feedback pot. In his second tutorial Andrey shows how to add a rotatory encoder to the servo, for position feedback. It will stand still with control pulse of around 1,5ms (mine likes 1515us; […]