News & Articles

Free Robotics Guide

Get started making your own robotics with this guide from the Pyros! Send Me My Free Guide!

Categories

Sponsors

Learner’s CPLD Dev Board

October 18, 2011 by Chris
Here is a great project for getting your hands dirty while honing in on both your PCB board design skills and verilog/vhdl programming skills. The article shows you how to make a small, simple and straight- forward dev board for a well known Xilinx CPLD. The documentation is thorough, with example code and all the hardware design (eagle board layout and schematic) available for download.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »


Light Reading: Watchdog Timer Techniques

September 25, 2011 by Chris
The watchdog timer is something most embedded designers put off learning about until it's necessary, primarily because it's not typically necessary. However, when you begin designing for very redundant systems for space or autonomy, you will have to use it. This article covers what this thing is and how it is used. Some software examples are included.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

Simulink – Embedded Target for PIC

September 24, 2011 by Chris
Simulink is a part of a larger engineering tool called MatLab and has a wide variety of design and test functions. This article shows you how to use SimuLink to build functional system models for a PIC microcontroller using simulink blocks. Code is generated by simulink and downloaded to the PIC. It is just as easy as it sounds, so take a look at microchip's simulink blockset.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

PhonePhreakrz: DTMF Decoder 2

September 17, 2011 by Chris
“The DTMF decoder 2 is a useful tool used for decoding DTMF (Dual Tone Multi frequency) generated by telephones. The decoded digits are viewed on a 16x2 LCD screen. The DTMF decoder can be directly connected to a Serial port to view the digits in HyperTerminal on a computer.”

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  Comments(2) »

Light Reading: Why Use Interrupts?

September 11, 2011 by Chris
Some light reading for today: For those of you who took a look at my recent intro to interrupts article and are still wondering why? This article is a great summary of the advantages that interrupt hardware and software logic offer us as electronics builders and designers. The main goal here is to show you how bad latency is in polling based systems.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

Embedded Systems: The Rest of the Story

September 2, 2011 by Chris
Embedded System design becomes a whole lot easier when we actually have a great definition of what an embedded system is. This article explains every aspect of embedded systems from both a design and business perspective for why we need embedded systems, like PIC, AVR or ARM, and where they should be used.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

PIC to Nokia 3510i LCD Interface

July 23, 2011 by Chris
Interfacing to LCD's is a bit of a holy grail for embedded devices because of the challenges it presents. This article shows an example system of how to interface a 16F series PIC to an old Nokia Cell-phone LCD. It's all written in assembly, so take a deep breath before diving in.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

Ladder Logic for PIC and AVR

July 15, 2011 by Chris
Today's article should interest those of you in manufacturing and motion control industries because it deals with the programming style known as ladder logic. The article explains how you can use their custom software to do ladder logic on a PIC or AVR microcontroller. Ladder logic is a type of graphical programming that has been popular in the PLC industry for many years.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

Low-Power LCD Smackdown

July 10, 2011 by Chris
Here's a quick article comparing 3 popular, low cost, easy-to-use and low power LCD's. The article gives you comparisons between them all along with example code and resources for getting started with them. So if you're looking for an LCD for your project, or just need some reference material, take a look at this one.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

FabISP, In-System Programmer

July 2, 2011 by Chris
FabISP, is a system for using some custom work of an ATTiny to do in-system programming. The article shows you this process, from design in schematic, to board layout and firmware. All the project files are there for download along with a parts list. This is a well documented design of a programmer, so if you're looking to learn more on PCB and AVR, take a look.

PyroFactor:
Read
Permalink  |  Email This Post Email This Post  |  No Comments »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »