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PIC18F4620 Embedded Websockets

January 15, 2012 by Chris
“This project enables your MCU to communicate in real time to a web browser. I started this project after seeing a similar implementation on hackaday from mbed.org. Their implementation uses their own device, the mbed Cortex-M0 beta. I've been a hobbyist microchip PIC developer for a few years, so I set out to write my own version for microchip's 8bit pic devices in C. The microcontroller used is a microchip PIC18F4620.”

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dsPIC based Spectrum Analyzer

January 14, 2012 by Chris
“The dsPIC runs on the internal oscillator of 7.37MHz, which is then raised close to 30MHz using the PLL. This enables the board to run without external oscillators and associated loading capacitors. The signal to be analyzed is passed through a high impedance resistor (1Mohms) and then amplified by opamp (TL084). This is done to avoid any high voltage damaging the dsPIC or associated circuit. DC offset is added to the signal to enable it to be measured by ADC (0V to 5V).”

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Areoquad: The Open Source Quadcopter

January 13, 2012 by Chris
“AeroQuad hardware typically consists of an Arduino MCU as the flight controller board and an AeroQuad shield with various sensors, such as an accelerometer and gyroscope. AeroQuad software is written in C and uploaded to the MCU via the Arduino IDE. It currently supports an Acrobatic Mode that uses only the gyroscope for flight assistance, and a Stable Mode that uses the gyroscope and accelero-meter for leveled flight assist.”

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EECE 343 Final FPGA Projects

January 12, 2012 by Chris
     The Altera UP2 Dev Board may be a bit antiquated but it still provides an awesome learning platform for under- grad university students.
     This week's article will introduce 4 of the final projects from California State University Chico's EECE 343 course: Computer Interface Circuits. Each final project has a video of the project in action as well as the FPGA source code available for download.

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2012 Freeday At Sparkfun

January 11, 2012 by Chris
“Free Day is the time when SparkFun gives back to our community and customers.This year we're giving away $200,000 to 2,000 lucky people, one hundred dollars at a time. When you fill out the captcha above (to prove you're a human), a request is sent to our servers where there is a Geiger tube hooked up. If the Geiger tube detects a particle of ionizing radiation during your request, you win! It's truly random! ”

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PIC18F Based Line-Follower

January 10, 2012 by Chris
“This was a second-year Embedded Systems Application Project at university. We were given the hardware and after assembling the robot, had to write firmware for it. The PIC MCU programming was done in C. As it was the first time this course was run, objectives were not concrete and were updated as students progressed. Some of the objectives were: follow a line, go over a ramp and memorize a track.”

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Atmel AVR Propeller Clock

January 9, 2012 by Chris
“Each time the PCB passed at 12h00 a hall effect sensor sensed the magnet and generated an interruption. At this time, we have to check the counter to see how many ticks had been passed from this rotation since the last rotation, took this value and divided it by 360. This calculation then gives you the time between each degree.”

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Arduino DVM with LCD Display

January 8, 2012 by Chris
“A Digital Voltmeter (DVM) is one of the first things you need if you're building electronics projects. Most of us have one. But what if you need more than one? Enter the Arduino. If you have an Arduino that can drive an LCD, you've got a multi-channel voltmeter!”

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Pan Tracking Webcam Using OpenCV and Arduino

January 7, 2012 by Chris
“The protocol is very simple between OpenCV and Arduino: the program transmits one integer per line through the serial connection (using the USB connection or a RS232 port). Each integers gives the position (in microseconds) to where the servo should move.”

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Verilog Based Parallel Port FPGA Interface

January 6, 2012 by Chris
“The main goals of this project was to learn Verilog, to learn about buses and to create a platform for future projects which require the parallelism and/or exact timing of an FPGA combined with the ease of programming of a general purpose PC. An example of a future project is a programmable function generator. At the command of an application running on the PC, the FPGA can generate square waves or PWM signals to feed into a device under test.”

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