Inside The Hard Drive

November 10, 2008 by Chris
If you've never taken a peek inside the mechanical hard drives that have been widely used for many years, now is your opportunity (at no cost). This articles gives you an in depth look at all the parts inside the modern computer hard drive and what they do.


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HD44780 LCD Display

October 11, 2008 by Chris
This LCD controller (HD44780) is the most widely used on LCD segment displays. The link for today leads to a plethora of background information on sending commands to the controller as well as software examples for many different devices.


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Build A Chat-Cord

October 5, 2008 by Chris
This project shows you how to easily (and cheaply) create a chat-cord. The chat-cord is something that has become increasingly popular in the world of VOIP. If you are a Skype master with some basic solder skills this should be a very easy project for you. Schematic details & parts lists is available in the project write-up.

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40 MHz Frequency Meter

August 9, 2008 by Chris
This project is a simple little frequency meter. It uses an ATMega microcontroller for its brains with a standard algorithm & timer for calculating the frequency seen on input. Newer microcontrollers will have CCP (capture & compare modules) that make this task a piece of cake, but a back to the basics look at thing never hurts!


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The LED Megalight

June 1, 2008 by Chris
The mega-light 'or simply the Oh my Gawd, my eyes! is a homemade led flashlight with a pvc body.' It uses only one super bright luxeon V led. The project write-up explains what you need and how to build it.



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Make Your Own PCB

May 26, 2008 by Chris
PCB (printed circuit boards) are now used in everything involved with electronics. They are extremely helpful because components are often so tiny it's impossible to hand solder or efficiently make use of them. This guide shows you how to make your PCB using your printer & a few other tools.


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Embedded Linux Sprinkler Controller

May 22, 2008 by Chris
This is a 4-zone sprinkler controller using embedded linux. It was also modified to control a garden hose sprinkler system. The implementation is fairly innovative, plus there's lots of pictures, schematics & lists everything you'd need to build it.



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ATmega TV Terminal

May 20, 2008 by Chris
The ATmega TV Terminal is a simple project that connects together a keyboard, serial communication port & TV video output. The idea of course is to make the TV the output terminal. If you're into AVR's this is definitely a project you can learn alot from. PCB schematics, source code & an indepth project write-up are all there.

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Make A Talking Microcontroller

May 3, 2008 by Chris
This is actually the third part in a series on digital audio. The project write-up and the instructional video show how to play an audio wave file from an SD card using a standard microcontroller. The hardware setup & software source code is all there for you.


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Getting Started With AVR

April 27, 2008 by Chris
Atmel's line of AVR microcontrollers is very popular among both hobbyists and professionals. This write-up lists out some of the more affordable programmers for AVR as well as all the 'free' development tools necessary to get started.



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