If there is one thing I have learned in my years on this planet, it would be that it is human nature to staunchly choose sides. Whether it is Republican or Democrat, Coke or Pepsi, or Mac or PC, people love to rally behind the products they love and disparage the ones they don’t. In […]
Teardown: Samsung Galaxy S4 Read More »
USB OTG (On-The-Go) cable enables for example a simple connection of USB slave devices with a smartphone. As we know, USB communications operates in such a way, that a Master (Host) device (usually a PC) controls all communication on the bus and Slave devices are only able to require attention. Slave devices are all common
USB OTG – it´s better to be a master than a slave Read More »
As PCB part placements get denser, it’s necessary to add breakaway panels that add additional board material (edge rails) to accommodate the assembly process. Two parallel edges are required for a PCB to be processed in the SMT line. This is to prevent skewing through the conveyor system. Also, all odd shaped PCB’s must have
PCB Design Perfection Starts in the CAD Library Read More »
If you have used LCDs in projects before you have realized that to use the backlight on a LCD display you need large positive and negative voltages. This circuit will help you create the voltages you need from a simple 2.5V to 6V input. I chose this circuit since many of my projects run off
LCD Display Backlight Power Supply Circuit Read More »
What is the Arno Shield? It’s a follow up to the Arno board for those that prefer to work with a shield. When you’ve completed all the projects that are in the included book, you can pop the shield off your Arduino compatible board and start building your project. It’s also a great way to
You can use an LED as a photoelectric sensor. A previous Design Idea shows that such a switch is highly power-efficient, consuming almost no power (Reference 1). However, you cannot adjust that configuration to switch at the desired light intensity. You can adjust the circuit in this Design Idea to any threshold level of light
Adjust power-efficient LED switch to any light intensity Read More »
An application note from Microchip: Interfacing a 4×4 Matrix keypad with an 8-Bit GPIO expander This application note discusses interfacing a 4×4 matrix keypad with MCP23X08 8-Bit GPIO Expander. This application note references the MCP23X08/17 GPIO Expander Keypad/LCD Demo Board (GPIODM-KPLCD). GPIO Expanders provide easy I/O expansion using standard serial interfaces such as I2C and SPI.
Interfacing a 4×4 Matrix keypad with an 8-Bit GPIO expander Read More »
Have you ever wanted to take a standard voltage op-amp and turn it into a high voltage output circuit? Here is a technique that requires some shunt regulators to power the chip and some current limiting transistor circuitry for the output. This example should work upto +/- 120V. For more detail: Make an Op-Amp High-Voltage
Make an Op-Amp High-Voltage Output Circuit Read More »
This week we have been playing with another new product, the DipCortex. It’s an ARM Cortex M3/M0 in a 40 pin dip package and USB socket. It has two versions a NXP LPC1347 M3 and a LPC11U24 M0, the pin out roughly follows a certain range of 40pin 8bit micros. It’s perfect for quickly
DipCortex – ARM Cortex in a Dip Package with USB Read More »
Check out this cool 3D Printed Stepper Motor that Christopher Hawkins made. You can see in the video that it can move quite quickly and not loose any steps. This design would be idea to teach how stepper motors work. Via: Hack a Day “This is a programmable stepper motor and driver that I made out of some nails, magnet
3D Printed Stepper Motor Read More »
