Last March Ray presented his design of a portable breadboard power supply with a selectable voltage using the Microchip MCP1640 boost converter he dubbed the AASaver. After receiving and assembling batches of AASaver PCBs he wrote this tutorial explaining the techniques he uses to manually assemble the boards into a finished, functional product. This is […]
Category Archives: tutorials
LED sign control board replaced with Arduino
Bob picked up a huge LED matrix sign on eBay that has power supply problems. After fixing the power supply, he decided to replace the controler boards with an Arduino. Via Hacked Gadgets.
Jeremy Blum’s CadSoft Eagle video tutorials
OpenEnergyMonitor tweeted: Get started with Eagle CAD PCB design with Jeremy Blum’s video tutorials on @element14 site www.jeremyblum.com Via Twitter.
Basic input and output on the Netduino
Embedded-Lab is doing a series of tutorials for the Netduino, the open source Arduino shield compatible platform using the .Net Micro Framework. The first tutorial in the series is a how to on implementing basic input and output. We will start our Netduino tutorial series with a very basic project of flashing an LED. The […]
DIY PCB tutorial
Jianyi Liu wrote a tutorial on PCB fabrication at home. He states, “A few years ago, I started experimenting with homemade prototype PCBs as an alternative to professionally fabricated PCBs from board manufacturing company. My company was flexible enough to give me some resources and time to explore the subject matter. What I discovered was […]
Silkscreen PCBs with vinyl stickers and toner transfer
Make DIY silkscreens using vinyl stickers, similar to making PCBs with toner transfer methods: Below I am going to detail the process of making the silkscreen, which is the side of the printed circuit board where we solder the electrical components. We will use the same method, vinyl sticker pcb.
Stovetop toner transfer tutorial
One of the most common techniques in DIY PCB etching is the toner transfer method. Tom added a twist to the standard method by adding the use of a stovetop in the toner transfer process. He wrote a tutorial describing in depth how you could recreate his results. I have been trying out a new […]
Eagle tutorial: How to position components on the bottom side of the board
If you really wanna jam as many components in the tightest space possible, dual side placement is the way to go. Luca made a tutorial for Eagle which describes how to place components on the bottom side of the board.
Video: dynamic flip-flop tutorial
Dynamic flip-flops. What are they and why should you care? Jeri Ellsworth discusses their operation and characteristics in this new video tutorial.
Introduction to cortex serial wire debugging, 3-part tutorial
Squonk refers us to this 3-part tutorial on the ARM SWD debug protocol. LPC ARM Cortex-based microcontrollers from NXP can be controlled via SWD, ARM’s Serial Wire Debug protocol and the Coresight register set which allow nonintrusive debugging. This blog post series summarizes use of the SWD protocol to do basic debugging functions on the […]
DIY low budget manual pick & place
Vpapanik shared a tutorial on how to make your own SMD pick and place machine: If you are dealing with tiny SMD parts (e.g. 0402 resistors and capacitors), a manual pick and place machine is a helpful piece of equipment for prototyping and small-batch manufacturing. On the other side, traditional SMD placement using precision tweezers not […]
Led matrix with HT1632C controller
Luca wrote a tutorial about LED matrices with HT1632C controller.
3D KiCAD Parts using OpenSCAD and Wings3D
Christopher Woodall from HappyRobotLabs wrote to us with a short tutorial on how to use OpenSCAD and Wings3D to make 3D component models for KiCAD: I personally find it convenient to utilize OpenSCAD to make 3D models of most eletrical components, which are simple and easily defined parametrically in OpenSCAD’s language. OpenSCAD allows you to write […]
Closer look at a direct sequence spread spectrum signal
Sebastian Westerhold draws our attention to his article taking a closer look at a direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) signal. Sebastian is holder of amateur radio license KF5OBS and is interested in experimenting with pseudorandom number generators. In his article he describes the generation of a pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS) using a linear feedback shift […]
Make your own Nixie tube socket tutorial
Electronics Lab brings us a tutorial on how to build sockets for IN-14 Nixies. The idea is simple. Use the spacer that comes with the Nixie, and insert female pinheaders into it. All that’s left is to shorten the leads coming from the Nixie, and you got a Nixie socket.
Tutorial: Arduino as barebones AVR programmer
Michael Holachek of HCIL Hackerspace has produced this 10 minute video tutorial that explains how to program a barebones AVR with an Arduino. This is a well explained how-to with clear video will be helpful to newcomers and Arduino veterans alike. Go to Michael’s website for code, resources, and more. Via the contact form.
Tutorial: STM32 boards and TFT LCD touchscreens
Zizzle has completed a tutorial for working with the STM32 boards and the TFT LCD + touch screens that you see on Ebay. He reports, “I’ve made a download Ubuntu Virtualbox image with the toolchain, OpenOCD, Eclipse and an example project.” He notes that the Bus Blaster was very helpful in his research. The video […]
HOW-TO: Access Bus Pirate v4 on-board I2C EEPROM
Bus Pirate v4 has an on-board 24xx64 8Kbyte data storage chip called an EEPROM (IC3). It can be used to store various settings and preferences, but cooler, the EEPROM’s I2C interface can be accessed from within the Bus Pirate’s I2C mode. First time users can get familiar with the Bus Pirate without any added components! […]
Start-up guide to the Stellaris LaunchPad
Here’s TI’s quick start-up guide to their new Stellaris LaunchPad, which is a Cortex M4 based digital signal processor development board. Via Embedded Lab.
Another toner transfer circuit board making guide
Sometimes prototyping your boards needs to be done quickly. Etching boards at home is the quickest way to knock up simple designs. There’s tons of ways to do it, one of the most popular is the toner transfer method. A circuit design is laser-printed on glossy paper, then transferred to a clean copper board with […]