American pro football using RFID


With the start of the USA’s pro football season the NFL has announced the use of RFID technology to enhance reporting of player performance data. If you want to place bets on your favorite teams, you may explore $1 deposit casino platforms. The conquestador casino website also offers bonuses and big prizes to new players.

The NFL partnered with Zebra Technologies, which is applying the same radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology that it has used the past 15 years to monitor everything from supplies on automotive assembly lines to dairy cows’ milk production.

Every NFL player will wear two tiny sensors in his shoulder pads this season in the first “live” phase of a project the league hopes will enhance the in-stadium experience as well, with further media expansion and integration with teams’ existing training technology likely down the line.

If a player finds another gear in the fourth quarter of an important game, the sensors will pick it up. And if he’s running out of gas, the sensors will reveal that, too.

The sensors have reportedly been installed in 17 NFL stadiums with associated hardware that logs players’ locations in real time. In less than a second, the server can spit out data that can be enhanced graphically for TV broadcasts with the press of a button.

Via USA Today.

Native assembler programming on Arduino

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Eagle over at at cypherpunk.at posted details on programming an Arduino in assembly language.

This article is about programming an Arduino board natively in pure Assembler without carrying the rucksack of standard libraries and functions. Using a simple example and an Arduino Uno board, I will show how to assemble, link, and upload your code to the board without using the Arduino development environment. This article does not teach you how to write Assembler code.

Trio JR-310 and TX-310 restoration project

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Dilshan Jayakody did restoration of TX-310 transmitter and JR-310 receiver step-by-step:

I got Trio (now Kenwood) JR-310 and TX-310 SSB receiver and transmitter pair recently. When it comes to me both receiver and transmitter are in very bad shape and most of the PCBs and chassis are covered with dust and some of the components are very badly damaged. After examining both the chassis I decided to repair both units because of its vintage value (and also I like to try some tube base SSB receiver and transmitter pair).
Trio JR-310 is AM, SSB and CW mode HF receiver. This receiver has 3.5, 7, 14, 21, 25 and 50MHz operating bands and sensitivity is around 1µV. This receiver consists with 6 vacuum tubes, 5 transistors and 19 diodes. JR-310 which I restored is working with 110V and total power consumption is around 70W.
TX-310 is 20W SSB transmitter and designed to match with JR-310 receiver. It is capable of LSB, USB, AM and CW transmissions in HF bands. This unit consists with 10 vacuum tubes, 5 transistors and 9 diodes. Like JR-310, this unit also working with 110V power source.

More detailed information on Dilshan Jayakody’s qsl.net pages.

 

Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters

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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. 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”

Week in (p)review September 05, 2014

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Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon.

Coming up:

  • Free PCBs via Facebook on Friday
  • App notes on the weekend
  • Free PCB Sunday
  • Free PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday
  • Weekly roundup and preview every Friday

Wireless servo controller II

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Ondřej Karas of DoItWireless writes:

We described simple method, how to drive modellers servo. Today, we are going to try to drive this servo from potentiometer connected to TR module ADC. It is reaction to forum thread where is discussion about airplane model control possibility.

Check out the video after the break. Continue reading “Wireless servo controller II”

ATtiny84 USBtiny AVR ISP programmer

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Rupert Hirst writes:

My through hole, home etch friendly version of the surface mount FabISP, which is based around the USBtinyISP AVR ISP Programmer. The new USBtinyISP drivers also support for Windows 8
This design uses the ATtiny84 microcontroller instead of the larger ATtiny2313 of the USBtiny.

Project design flies can be found on RunawayBrainz page.

Elephant and Castle Mini Maker Faire set for November 15, 2014

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The Elephant & Castle Mini Maker Faire has announced plans for their upcoming event. “London’s first Maker Faire is coming back around for another go on 15th November, 2014. The Maker Faire is a day of family friendly making, learning, crafting, inventing and tinkering in the heart of London. Be inspired by arts, crafts, engineering, science and technology from the Makers of the capital.”

Tickets are available from EventBrite.

Mark you calendar!

Via the contact form.

HP 8642B backlight Mod

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Kerry Wong writes:

 If you take a look at the picture below, you may recognize immediately that it is a picture of an HP 8642B synthesized signal generator. But if you take a closer look, you probably will notice something different if you have ever used an HP 8642B before.
The original HP 8642 series used two miniature incandescent light bulbs for the instrument LCD backlight and the backlight has an orangish color to it. Unfortunately these light bulbs do not last that long (a few hundred hours) and if you got a used HP 8642 chances are that the backlight no longer works. This is exactly what happened to my HP 8642B. Unfortunately, without the backlight the instrument display is pretty difficult to read. So I decided to open it up and change the backlights.

ytimer, visual feedback timer

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Here’s Aon’s finished project the ytimer  a visual feedback timer. We wrote about it previously:

A countdown timer with super bright 7-segment displays that flash when the time is up, instead (or in addition to) an audible alarm.
The design is based on a PIC16F886 microcontroller which drives the displays using a TLC5916 LED driver and dual P-channel MOSFETs. A rotary encoder with a push button is used for input, in addition to two microswitches, one for power and one for toggling sound. The sound switch also toggles a green 0603 indicator LED.
The device is powered from two AAA batteries, which will hopefully deliver adequate battery life.

Via the forum.

Controlling a PiGlow with the Bus Pirate

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Aaron Brady has written an article on controlling a PiGlow with the Bus Pirate:

PiGlow provides 18 dimmable LEDs and is designed to be used with a Raspberry Pi. It sits right on the GPIO header of the Pi. It doesn’t use actual GPIO pins though, because the PiGlow is actually based on the SN3218 I2C PWM LED driver.

Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

Goodies from DirtyPCB´s

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Jan Henrik just got a stack of Dirty PCBs in the mail.  He writes:

So I just got my first delivery from DirtyPCB´s and it´s awesome! I ordered a Protopack ( 10 PCB´s ) in yellow with a size of 5 x 5 cm ( about 2 x 2 in ). And they just arrived! Yay!
The quality is very high and they look very clean ;)

Also namable:
I tried the new feature, that you can upload eagle files directly, it worked well!
I got 11 PCB´s instead of 10!!

All in all I think, that soon I will order at DirtyPCB´s again, they do some awesome work!

Via the contact form.

Free PCB build: USB IR TOY v3 + updated irWidget firmware

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mikelelere writes:

I’ve finally put some time and acquired most of the required parts to assemble the USB IR Toy v3 free PCB I received a few weeks ago. I’ve been lately interested in making a “backup” of several remotes I’ve at home, and the USB IR toy with the IRWidget firmware seems like the perfect candidate for doing so. Since JTR’s irWidget firmware only allows using the IRScope application with IR Toys equipped with the QSE159 photodetector, and unfortunately I did not manage to find such part for a reasonable amount, I decided to update his firmware to allow other IR Toys (like mine) to be usable with the IRScope app just by measuring IR pulse lengths using the regular TSOP photosensor.

If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll send you a coupon code for the free PCB drawer.

Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

 

First impression on HLK-RM04 serial-to-wifi module

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Ray Wang wrote a blog post review of the Hi-Link HLK-RM04 Serial-to-WiFi module:

 It’s a pretty easy-to-use and low-cost solution to add WiFi capability to Arduino or similar microcontroller boards. Basically it allows you to receive/send Ethernet buffers through serial RX/TX pins. Programming wise, it’s similar to using the standard Arduino Ethernet shield. The module can also function as a WiFi router for changing configurations etc.

You can find Ray’s post on Rayshobby.

Bus pirate, 5110 LCD interfacing

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s3c writes:

The Bus Pirate has to be one of the handiest debugging platforms ever created. It makes it really easy to ensure you know how something works before placing it in your final design. I recently decided to use some of the old refurbished 5110 LCD modules in a design, here’s a quick guide to get these units working with the Bus Pirate.

Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

DIY word clock

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Want to build your own world clock? Check out Wouter’s DIY word clock instructables:

…I have found one DIY project that really stands out: Elektronika.ba’s wordclock, proving that it is possible to build your own wordclock that is as pretty as the original.  Also, here is a video of the manufacturing process of the original: QLOCKTWO manufacturing
I have decided to build my own version, taking some queues from the sources in the above and making some changes (and adding some mistakes) of my own. Along the way, I have tried to take many pictures and I have written a build report in the form of this Instructable.

The design files are available on GitHub.

 

#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs

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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.

Triac based lamp dimmer

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Rajkumar Sharma over at Electronics Lab writes:

Triac based Indecent lamp dimmer is a simple circuit and it doesn’t requires additional power supply, works directly with 110V AC or 230V AC.
It is a low cost dimmer circuit for adjusting the light brightness of incandescent, Halogen Lamp, Light Bulb load up to 250 W.
Features:

– Input supply: 230 VAC or 110 VAC
– Output: 250 W
– Triac controlled
– On board Potentiometer for adjusting level
– Power Battery Terminal (PBT) for easy input / output connection
– Four mounting holes of 3.2 mm each
– PCB dimensions 40 mm x 34 mm