View allAll Photos Tagged microcontrollers
I got this board because I needed a development platform for one of my microcontrollers. At the same time, I ordered an Atmel AVR ISP MkII programmer, which I wanted to use because it is a native USB device and is a little easier to use on the Mac. Of course, it turns out that the programmer has a different type of ISP connector than this board was expecting.
So, this is a Olimex development board for Atmel AVR 20-pin microcontrollers, modified it to accept input from the AVR ISP MkII, which has a six-pin output connector. The header that I added is at the bottom of the board.
Read more about getting started programming the AVR on the Mac here.
Building our own digital clock is one of the dreamed project by most of the hobbyist or anyone that want to learn or involve seriously in the embedded system world; the ability to integrate time, day and date to the embedded system is one of the important knowledge that should be known by any embedded system designer. Today’s technology makes life easier as all these capabilities has already built nicely inside the Maxim (Dallas) DS1307 Real Time Clock (RTC) chip. For more information please visit www.ermicro.com/blog/?p=950
Microchip announced an expansion of its eXtreme Low Power (XLP) PIC® microcontrollers (MCUs) with the PIC24F “GB2” family. This new family features an integrated hardware crypto engine, a Random Number Generator (RNG) and One-Time-Programmable (OTP) key storage for protecting data in embedded applications. The PIC24F “GB2” devices offer up to 128 KB Flash and 8 KB RAM in small 28- or 44-pin packages, for battery-operated or portable applications such as “Internet of Things” (IoT) sensor nodes, access control systems and door locks. For more info, visit: www.microchip.com/get/GNUT
Prototype of a wireless soil temperature sensor using a single-bord microcontroller and an LCD display.
Experiments with Alternative Energy: Part 3
by John Gavlik
Learn the fundamentals of renewable energy through this educational series. This month: Build a Solar Powered Battery Charger Page 46
Projects
USB MP Controller
Computer Related
by Rob Caruso
This 'Recycled Electronics' build uses a knob from a VCR to create a controller for the Windows Media Player. Page 34
Retractable Micro-Probe for Fine-Pitch IC Access
Electronic Gadgets
by Dave Siegel
Size matters when you're working with surface mount components. This handy device will get you right to the point of things. Page 36
The Green Standby
Home Automation
by Carlos Cossio
This awesome unit lets your appliances stay connected to the grid while cutting the costs of your electric bills at the same time. Page 40
Columns
Techknowledgey
by Jeff Eckert
TechKnowledgery 2009 | October 2009
Topics covered include iPOD recording device, repulsive light force discovered, protecting personal data, China to dump Lenova holdings, plus other stuff. Page 12
Open Communication
by Louis E. Frenzel
E-Books
E-books offer one more way to communicate electronically. Page 15
Smiley’s Workshop
by Joe Pardue
Smileys Workshop: An AVR C Programming Series (Part 15)
Infrared object detection meets tomato soup cans. Page 18
Q&A
by Russell Kincaid
Q&A | October 2009
Game show lockout circuit, fluorescent ballast, PICAXE or PIC, plus more. Page 26
Personal Robotics
by Vern Graner
The Halloween Prop Dropper
The Prop Dropper is designed to detect the presence of a person, rapid-deploy a small prop, display it for a moment, then wind it back up out of view, ready for its next victim Page 52
The Design Cycle
by Fred Eady
The Design Cycle | October 2009
Unlocking a 16-bit USB front end for the new ENC624J600 stand-alone 10/100 Ehternet controller. Page 60
PICAXE Primer
by Ron Hackett
Using The AXE027 USB Programming Cable
This month's Primer we're going to take a first look at how to cope with the process of migrating from the serial to USB programming connections. Page 67
JCNC - CNC G-Code Viewer and GRBL PC Terminal Software www.jtronics.de/software/jcnc-cnc-steuerung.html
Sometimes we need to extend or add more I/O ports to our microcontroller based project; the question is how fast the response we need for these new I/O ports. Because usually we only have a limited I/O port left than the logical choice is to use the serial data transfer method; which usually only required maximum one to four ports for doing the data transfer.
Currently there is few type of modern embedded system serial data transfer interface widely supported by most of the chip’s manufactures such as I2C (read as I square C), SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface), 1-Wire (One Wire), Controller Area Network (CAN), USB (Universal Serial Bus) and the RS-232 families (RS-423, RS-422 and RS-485).
MCUs offering extensive connectivity interfaces, powerful performance and robust hardware-based security.
The short M3 nylon spacers are 8.25mm long over the hexagonal part, and the long ones are 12.5mm. A better length, for this purpose, would be 10mm.
The Nixie Watch project plods on! Software development begins.
Every project needs to go through this phase, at least in my scheme of handling things.
Here we see the Development Environment of Kings hosting an Atmel ATTiny861 microcontroller (MCU). Just out of shot is my laptop, upon which I wrote software for the MCU that causes it to blink an LED. This is a nice quick way to make sure that I haven't fried the chip and that I've wired everything up properly. For the programmers out there, I consider this step to be the "Hello World" of MCU programming - though this implementation is a bit more sophisticated than it needs to be; the LED blink is driven by a timer interrupt.
This version differs from the IN-14 clock version linked above in that it's all powered by batteries. One of the challenges of designing the watch software will be to set it up so that the MCU draws a minimum of power - not a pressing issue for a clock which is going to be plugged in to a wall socket, but critical for a thing like this which I would like to run for months on a trickle of current.
The little black box in the center right contains 2 AA batteries, which are standing in for the single lithium watch battery which will run the MCU in the real watch. Below it is the display power supply with its own battery. Getting the MCU and display working together is going to be the tricky part. To conserve power, the MCU will run a program that will cause it to immediately shut itself off - but not quite all the way off; it'll be just awake enough to notice when the display power supply fires up. That is, when the watch's wearer presses the button to show the time. At that point the chip will awaken, fetch the time from a crystal-based real time clock chip (not yet wired up), and start showing it on the nixies. When the wearer releases the show-time button, the display power supply will be disconnected and the MCU will notice that, stop trying to display the time, and hibernate again.
Interestingly, if you find such things interesting, this is the way most battery powered computerized widgets work; for instance, games on the Nintendo Game Boy (which I used to program, back when I was younger and even dumber) spend most of their time with the main processor asleep like that. At least they do if they were written well.
After a bit more fiddling I will be able to wire this to the display prototype and it will start being a watch - at least in the functional sense. Trying to wear the prototype on your arm would be like wearing a very geeky buckler.
BLIFNAR. Blinky Bug. LED-thingy. These all describe the SB-Firefly. This coin-cell powered microcontroller runs three LEDs through button selectable light blinking sequences with smooth transitions. Use the Firefly to teach soldering, have a late night blinky party, or hack into your own creation! This tiny application board comes with everything you need for a super small microcontroller project, battery included!
Microchip announced a new series within its high-performance PIC32MZ family of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) that features an integrated hardware floating point unit (FPU) for high performance and lower latency in intensive single and double-precision math applications. This new 48-member PIC32MZ EF series also offers a 12-bit, 18 MSPS analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for a wide array of high-speed, wide-bandwidth applications. Additionally, the PIC32MZ EF supports an extensive DSP instruction set. This combination of DSP instructions, a double-precision FPU and a high-speed ADC improves code density, decreases latency and accelerates performance in process-intensive applications. For an overview of the PIC32MZ family, please visit: www.microchip.com/PIC32MZ-091415a
Investigating the interfacing requirements.
Sometimes these just connect to microcontroller pins, sometimes they don't!
Just trying to figure out a few things for myself.
Sometimes we need to extend or add more I/O ports to our microcontroller based project; the question is how fast the response we need for these new I/O ports. Because usually we only have a limited I/O port left than the logical choice is to use the serial data transfer method; which usually only required maximum one to four ports for doing the data transfer.
Currently there is few type of modern embedded system serial data transfer interface widely supported by most of the chip’s manufactures such as I2C (read as I square C), SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface), 1-Wire (One Wire), Controller Area Network (CAN), USB (Universal Serial Bus) and the RS-232 families (RS-423, RS-422 and RS-485).
This module indicate bus values and notify value changes by a beep. This device is useful for digital electronic designs and troubleshooting.
This is an laser cut enclosure for mobile arduino prototyping. I will start selling this soon. A bit more testing is needed.
Check:
My first look at the circuitry of the YN-460 flash.
This is the inverter board that drives the flash tube.
BTW thanks TC. for being the first to risk it!
PS see this discussion for more info
The Motorola smart card sample is from the very early 90s or the late 80s. Motorola became very successful in the early days of smart cards providing 8 bit microcontrollers to companies such as Gemplus and Schlumberger. The smart card was first developed in France. The first GSM mobile phones had compete credit card sized smart cards inserted, before it made sense to provide a smaller SIM card.
The Hughes ID proximity card was developed in the 90s. Hughes were an early leader in the RFID market. The format is pretty much unchanged today. Inside the card is a coil (antenna), chip capacitor and an RFID chip.
Microchip announced an expansion of its eXtreme Low Power (XLP) PIC® microcontrollers (MCUs) with the PIC24F “GB2” family. This new family features an integrated hardware crypto engine, a Random Number Generator (RNG) and One-Time-Programmable (OTP) key storage for protecting data in embedded applications. The PIC24F “GB2” devices offer up to 128 KB Flash and 8 KB RAM in small 28- or 44-pin packages, for battery-operated or portable applications such as “Internet of Things” (IoT) sensor nodes, access control systems and door locks. For more info, visit: www.microchip.com/get/GNUT
How To: A Wire Wrapping Primer
by Vaughn D. Martin
Wire wrapping is a technique for constructing single or small numbers of simple to moderately complex electronic assemblies. Page 46
Projects
Build A Ballistic Chronograph
Electronic Gadgets
by David Collins
Wanna know how fast your projectile is going? Than you need to build this! Page 36
Ultra Low Power CMOS Water Sensor
Electronic Gadgets
by Michael Mullins
Don't let water dripping from your ceiling be your first indication you've got a leak. You can build this handy device in just a couple hours. Page 41
Turning A Microwave Oven Into A Darkroom Timer
Electronic Gadgets
by Al Jaszek
Find out what you can do with a dead microwave, a wooden box, a power cord, and a socket. Page 44
Columns
Techknowledgey
by Jeff Eckert
TechKnowledgey 2009
Topics covered include cold fusion... it's back, new Minis arrive, PUMAs, chip sales bottoming, pluys other cool stuff. Page 12
The Design Cycle
by Fred Eady
Into the Guts of USB Drivers
When it comes to replacing a Legacy RS-232 Interface with USB, try a Microchip PIC18F14K50 USB Flash microcontroller. Page 16
Open Communication
by Louis E. Frenzel
Smart Phones Leading Cellular Growth
The cell phone has become a must-have item in our modern life. You pick it up when you grab your car keys and wallet or purse every day. Page 22
Q&A
by Russell Kincaid
Q&A
EV battery charger, 90 VDC power supply magic, getting an A+ in class D, plus more. Page 28
Smiley’s Workshop
by Joe Pardue
Smiley’s Workshop: An AVR C Programming Series (Part 11)
Getting started with the Arduino Projects Kit Page 52
Personal Robotics
by Vern Graner
Das BlinkenBoard
After considering various processors, it was decided that the Atmel ATtiny84 was the "just right" chip for this specific job. Page 58
PICAXE Primer
by Ron Hackett
Taming Unruly LCD’s: Part 2
The 14M is the perfect processor for this project. It has more than enough I/O lines and program memory for the task at hand and it’s cheap enough that you can construct two or three complete “serialized” LCDs for the price of one commercial display. Page 67
Here is the MSF Receiver test bed in 2022, in a conveniently-sized shoebox which helps keep all the bits together.
Here we see the receiver module in a litte cheese carton.
I have managed to damage the receiver module (due to some ham fisted fault finding) which means it will only now function with a much reduced supply voltage, which explains the LM317 in the container.
Then on the main board I have had to add a voltage shifting circuit to lift the reduced output voltage to one which will drive the Arduino which runs the latest version of the code which may eventually find its way into the "built" unit.
There are a few redundant left-over parts from earlier projects.
Definitely a bit "Heath Robinson"!
A small present for my girlfriend.
More infos at blog.gut-man.de/2009/11/08/kleine-aufmerksamkeit-fur-die-...
In November 2011, Microchip announced a worldwide series of technical training seminars—beginning in January 2012—that will show designers how to easily adapt to changing product requirements by migrating a real-world application from 8, to 16, to 32-bit PIC® microcontrollers (MCUs). These one-day classes will teach engineers how to migrate the application using one set of tools and with minimal code changes; demonstrating how they can save both time and money through reuse. The seminars will utilize Microchip’s free software tools and the “One PIC MCU Platform Demo Board,” depicted above, which is bundled with the PICkit™ 3 programmer and is available exclusively to attendees. For more information, visit: www.microchip.com/2012seminars
Microchip announced an expansion of its eXtreme Low Power (XLP) PIC® microcontrollers (MCUs) with the PIC24F “GB2” family. This new family features an integrated hardware crypto engine, a Random Number Generator (RNG) and One-Time-Programmable (OTP) key storage for protecting data in embedded applications. The PIC24F “GB2” devices offer up to 128 KB Flash and 8 KB RAM in small 28- or 44-pin packages, for battery-operated or portable applications such as “Internet of Things” (IoT) sensor nodes, access control systems and door locks.
I spent hours sketching out this design using my son's color pencils (which he was none to pleased about at the time) before I picked up a soldering iron to put this circuit together. (see the schematic I used)
Fundamentally it is Peter Fleury's Pony-STK200 design (see: www.lancos.com/prog.html#avrisp). Though, I added the 5V Voltage Regulator and the PNP transistor switch to drive the Red LED. The 74HC125 quad line buffer is needed for the Reset, SCK, MISO, and MOSI lines so I decided use a PNP (2N3906) transistor to protect the laptop's parallel port and drive the Red LED, which is on when the Pony Prog software is Programming or Verifying the AVR.
The primary purpose of this circuit is to protect the AVR microcontroller and the laptop's parallel port from damaging each other. AVRs really don't like voltages higher than 5.5V. Hence the voltage regulator to keep everything at 5V.
My first test didn't work, but after a thorough inspection I figured out I had mis-wired the Read Enable wire to the 5V line so I could never actually read data from the AVR -- a sub-optimal arrangement ;-).
After correcting my mistake the circuit worked perfectly, and still does!
Centre compartment of a console record player that I'm retrofitting. This encloses the amplifier, a computer and a microcontroller.
The computer, at left on the vertical board, is a Via Epia M10000, lower power mainboard running Ubuntu server. This computer plays mp3's etc and is accessed through VLC's web interface or ssh. I replaced the CPU fan with a nearly silent one.
The microcontroller, temporarily sitting on a cardboard box on the amp is charge of receiving the remote control commands and forwarding them to the appropriate device and also for controlling digital potentiometers in the preamp/mixer. I am currently using an arduino to prototype.
You can also see the massive vibration isolating shelf that the turntable sits on (unstained wood).
This is a re-shoot of an old chip I opened up previously. I knew at the time that I could only see the metal layers and I needed a metallurgical scope to see anything else, so here we are.
Thanks to the improved camera and scope I can make out smaller details. According to the datasheet this chip has 128 Bytes of onboard SRAM and there are 32 rows and 32 columns in the mid-right block which equates to 1024 bits or 128 Bytes. Because of this I am fairly confident that block is the SRAM and the other two are the ROM.
This was pulled from an old opto-mechanical mouse which used a serial RS-232 connector. The top of the mouse and the ball were missing, so I was unable to identify the model. I think it is made by Logitech since the package has that written on it.
It was designed in 1988 and it uses HCMOS and It was based off of the Motorola 6800.
Data sheet here: usermanual.wiki/Document/MC68HC05P1TechnicalDataJan91.188...
Camera: SONY A6000
Number of Images: 77
Panorama Y Axis: 11 Image
Panorama X Axis: 7 Images
ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/8"
Light Source: Reflected lamp built into scope.
DIC: Yes
Overlap: 50%
Microscope Objective: 10X
Microscope Eyepiece: DSLR Mount
Grid Used: 4x4 (Panning Movement Aid)
Capture Motion: ZigZag
Stitching Software: Autopano Giga
Other Software: GIMP for white balancing and sharpening.
Image Type: PNG
Image Scale: 49.5%