301 Moved Permanently

Posted May 21, 2011 by Chris

It’s tough to know what to make of this project. It’s a type of creativity that seems quite far out, using the sound of sewing machines to create music. The website is light on the technical details but there are many instructional and demo videos of the ‘orchestra’ in action.

Posted May 20, 2011 by Chris

Today’s PyroElectro tutorial shows you how to build your own 10A DC motor controller on a PCB. The core design is kept simple so it is a great introductory project for hobbyists, while also shedding light on the basic method used for DC motor control. The parts cost less than $15 so why not give it a shot?

Posted May 19, 2011 by Chris

While an LED beacon doesn’t serve too great a purpose, it is a great design exercise for students new to the world of microcontrollers. The beacon uses a PIC and some transistors to control the beacon’s lighting. The article describes how it works and how to make your own.

Posted May 18, 2011 by Chris

MPLAB can run with Wine in linux, however I found another IDE for PIC dev work for linux called Piklab. It is dated with an update timestamp of 2007, but the raw source code is available for viewing along with the program. If you’re curious what it takes to program a MCU IDE take a look a this project and source code.

Posted May 17, 2011 by Chris

Here is a bit of an older design for a mobile robot using the OOPic MCU. It uses a few sensors and a servo gripper to go around looking for the right color of block to pick up. The article describes in depth the hardware and software design of the robot so that you can duplicate any part of the OB2 robot.

Posted May 16, 2011 by Chris

The eternal question of which one is the best will never be answered fully, so instead we spend our time trying to find which platform is best suited to solve specific problems. This article gives an introduction, with a DSP slant, for which devices are best suited toward solving which types of problems.

Posted May 15, 2011 by Chris

For today, here’s a themometer circuit that was used as a beginning board for teaching atmel micros to students. An onboard ADC converts signals from a thermistor and an AVR displays the values on some 7-seg LEDs. The article has hardware schematics and explains the theory of the circuit.

Posted May 14, 2011 by Chris

The N64 is nostalgic to many people and being able to use an N64 controller with your favorite PC game should be a luxury everyone can enjoy. This article shows you how to do just that, modify an N64 controller so that it is USB compatible with your PC.

Posted May 13, 2011 by Chris

If you’re looking to have some fun, building your own laser tag system is a great project to get started on. The parts are easily obtained and this article’s website is devoted to showing you how to build these things DIY style.

Posted May 12, 2011 by Chris

Breakout boards help you to test out complex parts that don’t have large package types making it so that even the smallest of parts can be put onto a breadboard. This example makes a breadboard for a RJ45 ethernet connector so that you can connect up networking projects, even on a breadboard!