In my new Dacia Duster is missing unfortunately an outside temperature indication. A finished thermometer with LCD did not separate from there while the contrast with sunlight usually particularly is. I had still alphanummeric LED display in red there for this project in the best way am suitable. As microcontroller i used a ATTINY 2313. The temperature sensor is a 1-Wire-digital sensor, thus the alignment of the sensor is void.
Via AVRs-AT-LEIPZIG.
Linux Journal has posted an article describing the installation and use of Oregano. Oregano is an electrical design and engineering tool for Linux which allows for schematic design and simulation of electronic circuits. The actual simulation is performed by Berkeley Spice, or GNUcap or the new generation ngspice.
Oregano is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, and is a work in progress. The dev crew welcomes any assistance in improving the program or adding new features.
Mikelelere built a Bus Pirate Arduino Shield from a free PCB. This board gives the Arduino the same front-end circuity as the Bus Pirate.
I have assembled the Bus Pirate Shield white PCB I received recently. As shown in the photo, I had to do some greenwiring to solder a SOIC 8 EEPROM instead of the proper SOT-23-5 I2C EEPROM which I did not have in my junkbox. In addition, I did not have a SOT-23-5 5V regulator with output enable either, so I replaced it with a SOT-23-5 tristate buffer (more greenwiring, since they were not pin-compatible) which I found in a drawer.
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.
Why you should document your Open Source Hardware project:
This specific moment, that moment when you start working on the refinements of a product to create the second version, could be a great moment to document your invention.
In fact, when you start again the production process, you already know how to do things, and also, you know what are the most complicated moments in the building process and you could leverage on this information to create compelling guidelines for folks interested in replication.
Via Open Electronics.
Manekinen posted an article describing how he designed and built his 400KHz function generator based on ICL8038:
Function generator with adjustable frequency from 0 Hz to over 400 kHz, adjustable amplitude, DC offset, duty, and of course the function selection – square, triangle, and sine. Generator based on good old ICL8038 integrated chip generator that gives pretty good shaped signals as for amateur purposes.
Want to test the Indoor Environmental Quality in your home or office. Here’s an Instructable by Donmatito on how to build your own.
Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is the measure of comfort and includes factors such as temperature, humidity, pressure, noise level, and indoor air quality. Don’s original goal was to monitor the IEQ of his baby’s room, but he soon realized that his project has more applications around the house and for others.
Don published the full details of the project and submitted it to the Green Design Contest at Instructables. Great work!
Via ThingSpeak Community.
If you are interested in the interaction between the natural world and how it can inspire the generation of code based graphical representations, you should check out Daniel Shiffman’s new ebook The Nature of Code. Dan is the author of Learning Processing and teaches a course titled Introduction to Computational Media.
NOC serves as a followup to Learning Processing and contains 400+ pages of analysis, explanation and examples of how natural phenomena can be analyzed and interpreted using Processing. The book is available as a download on a “name your price” basis, with a suggested contribution of $10. (You may designate a percentage of your contribution to go to the Processing Foundation.) You also can access downloads of the book’s code examples. We’ve examined a copy and this is definitely a comprehensive treatment of the subject, worth every bit of the $10 suggested price.
You can learn more about this project or acquire your own copy from Nature of Code.
Parker Dillmann of Longhorn Engineer reports he’s just finished the Rev0 of the Tommy Pinball System:
Just finished Rev0 of the Tommy Pinball System. I will be uploading the Eagle files after I can confirm the board works. It is a 4-Layer board so I will be using Seeedstudios new 4-layer prototyping service to order some boards. After I receive them I will allow some people to purchase at cost a fully assembled board for testing and code writing.
Paul over at Dorkbotpdx has written an article about his AD75019 crosspoint analog switch:
The chip is controlled by a big 256 bit shift register. I just chained the 3 chips in tandem, so the shift register is 768 bits.
In the regression tester, I used 3 of these chips to allow any combination of the 48 signals (on the X pins) to connect to any of 16 signals (on the Y pins). The 16 Y pins are connected as a 16 bit bus between these 3 chips, and the sets of 3 chips on the other boards in the tester. This “anything to the 16 signal bus” approach is important for understanding the code.
For more details and the Arduino code for these AD75019 chips visit Dorkbotpdx webpage.
Nickjohnson from Arachnid Labs shares that he successfully hooked up his solder paste dispenser to a CO2 tank!”
One thing that’s dissuaded me from buying a solder paste dispenser for so long is that I’m really not keen on a loud and bulky compressor in my workshop area, and I don’t want to spend several times the cost of the dispenser on a small and/or quiet compressor. I’d considered using an airbrush compressor, since they tend to be both quiet and small, but there was scant information on whether or not the smaller working pressure of such a compressor – typically 3 to 4 bar – would be sufficient for solder paste dispensing.
Via the forum.
Ryan Edwards met up with the DP crew at Maker Faire and he sends in this post on his experiments with open source water quality sensors.
For the last few years I have been creating open source water quality sensors. One of my other passions is Gardening and I had a need for pH and other (DO, eC) sensor interfaces for an Aeroponics setup I was creating. After not finding much on the market I decided to create my own, and as a result LeoPhi and MinipH were created.
LeoPhi is a USB enabled pH interface with an Atmega32u4 onboard. It allows someone to create standalone meters, or program it however needed.
MinipH is a very cost effecitve I2C pH interface meant to be added to projects very easily! It has a 12bit ADC and a fair amount put into the analog layout.
And while at the MakerFaire bring a hack dinner I showed off a DIY pH meter build and have a brief write up about it.
For those that want to start off from the begining and create their own interfaces I have a pH interface tutorial.
I plan on getting tutorials and writeups for my other sensors as the come online (eC and DO are next).
Visit Sparky’s Widgets for LeoPhi project info and code.
Via the contact form.
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:
Some stuff:
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.
Chris over at the EEVblog forum designed and built this DIY Metcal 13.56 MHz RF supply:
A while ago i came up with my own circuit for that, plus some nifty firmware (which basically is optional). You can see what i have done so far on the EEV-Blog forum here
As of recently the whole thing is working. I know that the Metcal system is more of a niche thing, but i think quite interesting none the less….
Via the contact form.
Brian from teho Labs has been working on creating a power supply – the quietPower:
quietPower is a power supply under development at teho Labs to provide a low noise bipolar output. This is essential for creating high quality measurement systems.
quietPower is still under development, when it is finished full schematic and a parts list will be made available.
Via the forum.
Here’s a USBTiny-MkII SLIM programmer based on AT90USB162 microcontroller:
USBTiny-MkII SLIM programmer (AVRISP-MKII clone) supports all Attiny, Atmega, and Xmega µcontrollers. It has three programming interfaces: ISP, PDI, and TPI. It works with AvrStudio or AvrDude. Small convenient board, contains double direction voltage translator for all interfaces and working from 1,2V, jumper for target chip voltage selection 5V or 3,3V (LDO stabilizer), and status LEDs. The heart of the device is a AT90USB162 controller with hardware USB, so it can provide fast programming speeds.
Here’s another cool laser cut acrylic case for the Logic Sniffer:
Case is made from 4 layers of 3mm laser cut black acrylic. All text is engraved and filled with white paint.
Buttons are cut from the same material, and they are mounted with double sided tape to the top cover (each button is actually a sandwich of two buttons and double sided tape – it touches a little those small switches on board). Smaller light guides for diodes are made from elastic light pipe, cut with Xacto knife and flame-polished, bigger ones are just 3mm light guides I had in a drawer).
Get a Logic Sniffer for $50, with free worldwide shipping.
Via the forum.
Tian Gao from Cornell’s University’s EE program developed what he calls an AntiTetris game using the Altera DE2 FPGA board. The project was part of the final requirements in Cornell’s ECE 5760 Advanced Microcontroller Design and system-on-chip Spring 2013 course. “In this project, I built a video game “Anti Tetris” on Altera DE2 board. The game captures the hand moving and pushing and the goal is to avoid tetriminos falling down by pushing them. If the tetriminos fill up the screen, the player fails. The final score is how many blocks the player dissolves and how long the game lasts. The game screen is the combination of the real video stream and the tetris board so that the player can see how can they hit the blocks.”
The project uses a skin detection algorithm allowing the player to use his hands to control game play. Cool concept.
Visit the Cornell U EE final’s webpage for details on this project and Verilog code links.
Via the contact form.
Andete posted an update to his “madparts” functional footprint editor we covered previously:
Today I released 1.1. Mostly a bug-fix release but it does contain a hugely simplified installation for Win32 and Linux.
Via the forum.
Here is a design guide from Maxim describing various classes of audio amplifiers.
This has been a brief survey of the many types of audio amplifiers commonly used in designs today. Clearly, when designing an audio circuit for any type of device, care should be taken in determining the audio amplifier topology best suited to the application. A good understanding of these different classes of audio amps will help you choose the best audio amp for your design.
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:
