Posted January 12, 2020 by Chris

“9 Volt batteries extensively used in various electronics measurement equipment. Powering these devices with rechargeable batteries can be a cost effective solution. In this post a simple Lithium-ion 9 Volt Battery Charger design with overcharging protection will be presented. Charger is based on PIC16F876A microcontroller and uses its A/D module to monitor current flow into the battery.”

Posted April 15, 2018 by Chris

"This article is based on the research made between 1996 and 2000.
The past ten years of my research into hardware security showed that any microcontroller, FPGA, secure memory, smartcard, ASIC or custom chip can be successfully attacked given enough time and resources. The question is whether the semiconductor chip used in a particular application can withstand multi-million-dollar attack or would fail to defeat a 10-dollar attack."

Posted September 11, 2015 by Chris

"If you’re going to use PICs whether it’s with code written by someone else, or with your own code you’ll need a programmer. There are numerous free hardware designs available and the software to control them. Alternatively you can buy programmers as kits or ready built."

Posted August 26, 2015 by Chris

"Recently we had a chance to build a Blinky POV from Wayne and Lane. Or more accurately I should say she had a chance to build it, since my role was limited to talking her through the steps and taking photos. It’s impressive what an 11-year-old can do with a soldering iron!"

Posted July 3, 2015 by Chris

"This project started life a long time ago, with the intention to build an iPod clone, back when personal MP3 players were an expensive luxury and long before you could buy them from China on ebay for less than a light bulb. "

Posted May 26, 2015 by Chris

"The sound card runs at a sample rate of 48KHz, 32KHz or 24KHz selectable by the OS with 12 bits per sample. The quality approaches commercial grade as the sample rate is higher then CDs. 44.1KHz was not implemented due to the difficultly and additional processing overhead."

Posted May 15, 2015 by Chris

"Add general purpose input/output lines to your computer based projects. This circuit is a 12 pin digital GPIO interface using the Microchip PIC18f14k50 microcontroller which connects to an USB host port. The microcontroller is available in through-hole DIP20 and SMD packages, too."

Posted April 27, 2015 by Chris

"All parts were developed separately. This allowed adjustments in the assembly as well as smaller changes in case the design of one or other part become required. Focus on low cost and use of materials easily accessible in the local market."

Posted March 10, 2015 by Chris

"Well, that time has come and they are finally finished. However, they look a little rough. I am still quite pleased with the overall product and will most likely be making a second pair. Got the idea from this awesome How-to.."

Posted February 16, 2015 by Chris

"The 24FC1025 is a serial I2C EEPROM memory fabricated by microchip, it has 1024Kbits (128KB) of memory space and it is divided in two parts each one of 512Kbits (64KB); the first part goes from address 0x0000 to 0xFFFF and the second part goes from 0x10000 to 0x1FFFF."