ESP8266 mains energy monitor

pcb-in-case

A ESP8266 mains energy monitor project by Brian Dorey:

 As the new solar logger did not have this functionality we decided to design a new data-logger that would measure not only the mains current usage but also keep track of the electric meter and gas meter so we can easily see how much energy we are using in the house.
The new mains energy monitor was designed to be a standalone box that would be powered from the mains and have sensors for the mains current, electric meter and gas meter. As we didn’t want to run any more wires around the house we also decided to make it wireless connecting to our network over Wi-Fi.

Project info at Brian Dorey’s blog.

MIDI to USB adapter with Teensy LC

circuit

Joonas has written up documentation on his MIDI to USB adapter with Teensy LC:

Thankfully, I had a MIDI connector and a high-speed optocoupler at hand, and with these I could implement a MIDI in rather easily. After some investigation with Arduino Uno, it seemed quite simple to receive the serial MIDI bytes and dump them over Arduino serial (I’ll write another post about this later).
However, Arduino cannot become a USB MIDI device very easily, so here comes the really nice part: Teensy LC can, and the Teensyduino add-on included a working USB MIDI and also serial MIDI libraries!

More info at Code and Life site.

Via the contact form.

App note: PointLED® – It’s nice to be different

an_osram_point_led

New SMD LED design from OSRAM ideal for mounting on PCB holes for illumination. Link here (PDF)

This application note provides insight into the universally deployable and flexibly mountable light source of the PointLED® product family. A fundamental overview of the LED construction as well as the optical and electrical characteristics and performance of the LED are presented.

Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB

IRToy

We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week two random commenters will get a coupon code for the free PCB drawer tomorrow morning. Pick your own PCB. You get unlimited free PCBs now – finish one and we’ll send you another! Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB”

App note: How to handle a reed switch

an_hsi_HSI_Sensing_-_How_to_Handle_a_Reed_Switch_v100512

Proper handling of reed switches to prolong operation and or storage, an application note from HSI sensing. Link here (PDF)

Reed switches consist of two or three metal reed contacts (blades) that are hermetically sealed inside a glass tube. This seal, while strong, may be damaged if proper handling is not used. HSI Sensing has years of experience handling reed switches and have identified several best practices.

More ARM1 processor reverse engineering: the priority encoder

full-encoder-labeled

In a previous post, Ken Shirriff reverse engineered the silicon in the ARM1 processor, this time he reverse-engineer the priority encoder in the ARM1 processor:

In this article, I reverse-engineer the priority encoder in the ARM1 processor. By examining the chip layout provided by the Visual ARM1 project, I have determined how this circuit works and created a schematic.
The ARM1 chip is the ancestor of the extremely popular ARM processors used in most smart phones. The ARM1 is a good choice for reverse engineering since it was designed in 1985 and its simple RISC silicon circuits are easier to understand than modern processors. This article jumps into the chip details; if you want an overview of the ARM1 internals, start with my first article on reverse engineering the ARM1.

More details at Ken Shirriff’s blog.

Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters

BP

Every Friday we give away some extra PCBs via Facebook. This post was announced on Facebook, and on Monday we’ll send coupon codes to two random commenters. The coupon code usually go to Facebook ‘Other’ Messages Folder . More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:

Continue reading “Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters”

Hacker Camp Shenzhen 2016 March 24-26

hacker-camp

Hacker Camp Shenzhen 2016 is on! Join us from Thursday March 24 to Saturday March 26 for fun, food and 3 solid days of electronics tours in Shenzhen China and beyond.

Come to the world’s electronics capital and experience Shenzhen like a local hacker. Tour the famous Huaqiangbei electronics markets with people who live in the neighborhood, figure out what to eat and how to get around.

This camp we’re adding an oft requested factory tour! Take our own party bus to a few factories around Shenzhen.

Saturday we’ll explore electronics and tools markets most foreigners could never find: Yihua and the massive Shajing.

Schedule

  • Optional: Tuesday March 22 – Dinner at Grill Meat Place (no, Angelo, it is not Korean BBQ)
  • Optional: Wednesday March 23 – Tour of Dongmen market & sign street, copy mall early arrival dinner at Japanese Secret Location
  • Thursday March 24 – How to survive Shenzhen, Huaqianbei tour, Szechuan Dinner
  • Friday March 25 – Factory tours, Hot Pot dinner
  • Saturday March 26 – Tour of Yihua and Depu markets, Hacker shaokao

That’s just an overview. You can expect nightly dinners and parties all week. Be sure to give yourself a few days to explore the market on your own after the camp!

Tickets

Tickets for the camp cover bus rental, materials, meeting room, 3 dinners, late night snacks, and a reasonable quantity of Tsing Tao beer. There’s only 20 tickets available and we expect they will sell out fast. Or maybe it’ll be a small intimate group. Who knows! We’re excited to see you there!

  • Normal ticket – $275
  • Supporter ticket – $375 (your name on the site and schedule of every future camp)

We also include allowance for Paypal fees, wire transfer fees, and currency conversion. Hacker Camp Shenzhen is a “no profit” event, meaning we’re lucky to break even.

Where to stay, visas, how to get there

City Inn (GoldMet) is (still) the recommended hotel, but be prepared for really bad internet and no WIFI. Check out the Shenzhen survival guide. Be sure to get WeChat and join the Shenzhen Hacker group chat after you buy a ticket!

SIM card provided

We’re traveling to places an hour or so north of Shenzhen, there are no taxis and nobody speaks English. Everyone must have a working SIM card with data, and this camp we’ll provide them!

VPN

You don’t need it! SIM cards will be Hong Kong Cross Border SIMs without internet content filtering.

Can’t make this one?

We have no idea if this will ever happen again! Maybe same time 2017.

Hacker Camp Shenzhen mailing list!

Don’t miss out, signup to be notified about upcoming hacker camps in Shenzhen!

RF probe

Assembly-600

m0xpd writes:

Today I finally got round to building a nice little RF probe kit from Rex, w1rex, the Tuna King over at QRPme.
I took the well-executed PCB which – unusually for Rex – had through hole mounting for the components rather than the ‘Limerick’ construction that recently I’ve come to associate with him…
Following the excellent instructions, I whittled away the PCB at the business end, to make the probe easier to probe and poke into awkward places, then added the four components…

More details at m0xpd’s blog.

Fobble, a general purpose wireless breakout board

Fobble_4

Ken Boak  has been working on a general purpose wireless breakout board – Fobble:

As can be seen from the above picture it contains a number of key features:

  • A resident RFduino  Bluetooth Low Energy Module with ARM Cortex M0 processor
  • 2 layer pcb 50 x 50 mm format- with extended Arduino headers pin-out
  • An X-Bee footprint – with 0.1″ breakout headers – to add your own wireless module
  • Two push button switches – only 1 populated shown
  • Footprint for RGB 0505 LED
  • Detachable power and programmer section
  • Detachable side panels – to make 38 x 32 mm BLE Key Fob
  • 8 pin header to accept 1.3″ OLED display
  • 20mm coin cell or flat Li Po cell power – on rear of Fob pcb
  • Micro – USB connector for recharging Li Po
  • Side Prototyping areas – perforated in 0.1″ matrix
  • 7 pin and 5 pin headers to accept any RFduino accessory shields – for development work

Project info at Sustainable Suburbia blog.

Counting bits in hardware: Reverse engineering the silicon in the ARM1 processor

chip-labeled-bit

Ken Shirriff writes:

How can you count bits in hardware? In this article, I reverse-engineer the circuit used by the ARM1 processor to count the number of set bits in a 16-bit field, showing how individual transistors form multiplexers, which are combined into adders, and finally form the bit counter. The ARM1 is the ancestor of the processor in most cell phones, so you may have a descendent of this circuit in your pocket.

More details at Ken Shirriff’s blog.

Mullard 3-3 amplifier project (part 1)

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Dilshan Jayakody has published a new build, a Mullard 3-3 amplifier project:

Mullard 3-3 is quiet popular 3W tube amplifier introduced by Mullard Ltd in 1956. A schematic and design detail of this amplifier is available in “Mullard Circuits for Audio Amplifiers” book and in National Valve Museum article. This amplifier is based on EF86, EL84 vacuum tubes and EZ80 full wave rectifier tube. In this project we decided to construct this original Mullard 3-3 Amplifier with some slight changes and commonly available electronic components.
In our prototype we replace EZ80 tube with 400V 5A bridge rectifier which is commonly available in many electronic spare parts shops. Also we replace EL84 with 6P14P pentode and EF86 with 6J8 pentode. Both of these valves can directly use with this circuit and those values are available for lesser price than EL84, EF86 tubes.

Project info at Dilshan Jayakody’s blog.

Building a tracking generator

trackinggenerator

A how-to on building a tracking generator using off-the-shelf components by Kerry Wong:

In this blog post, I will show you how to build a 0 to 5.8 GHz tracking generator for the HP 8566B 100 Hz to 22 GHz spectrum analyzer using off-the-shelf components for under $100. Although this tracking generator is specifically designed for my HP 8566B spectrum analyzer, the method discussed below is applicable to pretty much any spectrum analyzer that has an LO output (typically the 1st LO).
A tracking generator, as its name implies, tracks the frequency of the spectrum analyzer’s sweeping oscillator (typically 1st LO) so that the tracking generator’s frequency output matches the center frequency of the bandpass filter in spectrum analyzer’s IF stage. Thus at any given moment, the spectrum analyzer sees the same frequency input as what it is currently sweeping at. The combination of a spectrum analyzer and a tracking generator is often referred to as a scalar network analyzer (SNA).

More details at Kerry Wong blog.

Check out the video after the break. Continue reading “Building a tracking generator”

#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs

BP-600x373

Every Tuesday we give away two coupons for the free PCB drawer via Twitter. This post was announced on Twitter, and in 24 hours we’ll send coupon codes to two random retweeters. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week:

  • Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch it every Sunday, right here on the blog
  • Tweet-a-PCB Tuesday. Follow us and get boards in 144 characters or less
  • Facebook PCB Friday. Free PCBs will be your friend for the weekend

Some stuff:

  • Yes, we’ll mail it anywhere in the world!
  • Check out how we mail PCBs worldwide video.
  • We’ll contact you via Twitter with a coupon code for the PCB drawer.
  • Limit one PCB per address per month please.
  • Like everything else on this site, PCBs are offered without warranty.

We try to stagger free PCB posts so every time zone has a chance to participate, but the best way to see it first is to subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook.

Monitoring woodstove temperature with a MAX31855 Quad Thermocouple BoosterPack

MAX31855 Quad Thermocouple

Spirilis over at the 43oh forum writes:

This was a project begun last winter in the hopes of having an array of thermocouples to monitor my old woodstove when operating it. Well, I never got around to finishing it, but I have a fancy new woodstove as of this fall, and I would love to monitor its temperature curves likewise!
This BoosterPack is fancied as a baseboard plugging underneath the LaunchPad, with four holes for mounting studs in case I ever decide to fix it inside a permanent enclosure (probably one made of aluminum due to the heat). I could have pushed the Thermocouple terminal blocks out a little further to fit more launchpads, as I feel this is a bit tight. I chose a Tiva-C LP for my pics because it fits nicely but the BoosterPack is designed with low-power features, contrary to the MAX31855’s own design.

Via 43oh.

Dirt Cheap Dirty Reels: cheap component reels from China

dirty_reels

Component reels shouldn’t be overpriced or difficult to come by. Dirty Reels connects you to cheap Chinese component suppliers in the Huaqiangbei electronics market. Add a reel of resistors to your next DEV shop order for under $4!

A dirty reel of 5000 100ohm 5% 0603 resistors from a major Chinese manufacturer like Super Ohm is only $3.97. Mouser.com’s cheapest reel comes in at $20 per reel! As per the comments the 5% Mouser price is true, but not the whole picture. 1% reels at Mouser are about $10, and a 5% reel is around $6.50 at Digikey. Prices have dropped a lot since we were buying our parts from the big suppliers, apologies for being a lazy blogger.

Try some searches:
100R Resistor
10K Resistor
100nF Capacitor
1uF Capacitor

Over the past year we created a database of parts and suppliers in Huaqiangbei, the world’s largest electronics market. Dirty Reels is a public search of those parts. Choose the number of reels to purchase and add it to your cart. Behind the scenes we’ll go grab your parts and put them in your order.

Dirty Reels is highly experimental. Currently only resistors and capacitors are included in search results. Once things are running smoothly more components will be listed. The search is also very stupid, your values and units must match the database format: e.g. 100nF, not 0.1uF.

There are (not so) hidden ulterior motives behind Dirty Reels. We’re not trying to become Digikey, and it isn’t profitable to sell reels at this price. Instead, we’re trying to bootstrap a relationship with component suppliers.

For services like Dirty PCBs, Dirt SLA, and Dirty Cables we need a suppliers full price list and pricing formulas, but nobody wants to share that info as most prices are negotiated each time. What we like to do is send a flood of orders to get them interested, then have a meeting and ask for the info we need. Most suppliers are more than cooperative after the initial wave of sales.

You get reels of components near actual Chinese prices, while helping us to seduce new suppliers. Win, win, win!

FLIR MR160 thermal imaging and moisture meter review, teardown and experiments

Another great video review from TheSignalPath: FLIR MR160 Thermal imaging and moisture meter review, teardown & experiments

In this episode Shahriar takes a close look at the FLIR MR160 Thermal Imaging and Moisture Meter. Featuring Infrared Guided Measurement (IGM) technology powered by a FLIR Lepton® thermal imaging sensor, MR160 helps you quickly see temperature patterns that point to potential hidden moisture so you know right where to place the meter probe to capture accurate readings.
After an overview of the camera functions a full teardown of the instrument is presented. The FLIR MR160 is based on a single PIC32 processor with built-in capacitance measurement capability. The MR160 is then used to detect a moisture spot on a floor tiling. The presence of moisture is then verified with both the pin-less and pin-based moisture measurement capability of the MR160. Finally, the MR160 is also used to measure temperature variation across a bank of resistors.