February 13, 2012 by Chris
“Often the biggest stumbling block to using alphanumeric LCD displays is the number of pins required to control them. For the Hitachi 44780, twelve pins are required from the MCU to interface to the display for it to work in eight bit mode. For many smaller MCU, twelve pins are not available or will be better served in the application. To be fair, this can be reduced to six by using the 44780's "Four Bit" mode, but this can still be more than acceptable for most applications.”
PyroFactor: 
February 8, 2012 by Chris
“About 10 times a minute the controller poles each of the three I2C temperature sensors (DS1721) for it's current temperature. The sensors are the eight pin SMT IC's on the back of the boards. There is one on the main circuit board. There are two more sensors on the smaller boards. One of the smaller boards is screwed into the incoming air vent and the other is screwed into the vent on a backup AC unit.”
PyroFactor:
February 5, 2012 by Chris
“In this project we turned an Altera Cyclone II FGPA into a simple video production unit with the help of a Sony Handycam and a PC for serial communication. The main focus of the project is the ability to provide a green screen effect, most commonly seen with weather news. We would extract the green regions of the video based on a threshold and display a background image, such as a weather map.”
PyroFactor: 
February 1, 2012 by Chris
“The SudoGlove is a gesture controller that can be easily interfaced with hardware or software via a wireless connection. The glove implements an array of sensors plus filtering circuitry and mathematical analysis firmware to derive state values for each sensor and transmits them to an authorized receiver. I have used the glove to drive an RC car, to synthesize music, to manipulate openGL video, to control arbitrary processing software, and to control performance lighting effects.”
PyroFactor: 
January 16, 2012 by Chris
“The idea of building an RS232 to Ethernet bridge seemed like a great way to begin learning about embedded system design. Having created a working sample, though it was left with my teammate after graduation, I decided to recreate the project with more features and higher reliability. The project was later renamed from 'STEDS' to 'NI-1' (Network Interface 1) and finally 'Pack-it'. Pack-it is based on a Motorola MC9S12 MCU and a CS8900A Cirrus Ethernet controller.”
PyroFactor:
November 15, 2011 by Chris
“Raster-scan displays, like a TV, require a number of synchronization signals to operate. The display is addressed as multiple, consecutive, horizontal lines, which scan from left to right, displaying a large number of pixels on the line as it advances. At the end of a line, the display begins to scan the next line from left to right until the entire frame (consisting of many lines) is displayed.”
PyroFactor: 
November 5, 2011 by Chris
“On this page I will describe how to communicate with HD44780-based LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) using an Atmel AVR microcontroller. The page is mainly meant as a place for me to keep information on the pinouts of the display modules I have used, and to gather info about these displays, for me and others to use.”
PyroFactor:
October 27, 2011 by Chris
Touch screens seem to be the must-have innovation of the decade as they're seen in almost every new gadget and gizmo that comes out. But how exactly do they work and how can we use them? This PyroElectro article explains how a standard 4-wire resistive touch screen works and how to get the X/Y coordinates of a touched point using a PIC 18F452 microcontroller.
PyroFactor:
October 21, 2011 by Chris
“Our purpose here is to explore the potential of PIC12F683 micro for which we need a development board. The good thing is we are going to make our own board. The schematic and the actual board that I have built are shown below. I soldered all the components on a 12 x 8 cm general purpose prototyping board. ”
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