Electronics-Lab.com Blog

David writes:

I’m a hobyist electrotechnician/programmer. I like to play around with robotics, electronics in general and programing microcontrollers (namely the AVR family). Currently I’m a university student studying Eletronic Engineering…

On this page, I am presenting my projects, myself, sharing knowledge, offering services and help/consulting.

Check out some interesting projects:

• The DPLC
• The sanity nullifier
• AVR controlled clock
• The concealed codelock
• Game of Life on a character LCD
• YALBlinkie - yet another LED blinkie
• more…

Virtual Serial Port Driver allows users to create additional serial ports in a system. Virtual serial ports are connected into pairs via virtual null-modem cable, creating reliable serial port connection. Virtual serial ports work and behave exactly like real ones and application communicating with virtual ports will never get the difference.

Virtual Serial Port Driver - [Link]

If you’ve got an Arduino project that you want to take one step beyond a temporary breadboard, but don’t want the hassle and expense of creating a custom PCB, Protoduino is for you. In a carefully designed general purpose PCB, all IO pins are exposed, and there’s plenty of room for additional components including another 20 pins worth of DIP. The board is designed for easy customization — traces can be cut to give additional flexibility, and unneeded parts of the board can be trimmed away.

Protoduino — trimmable, solderable, standalone prototype board for Arduino / ATMEGA8/168 - [Link]

I want to build high quality preamplifier with built-in DAC from SPDIF or USB for my power amplifier Leachamp. I tried to design DAC from USB with this circuit on one-sided PCB and I was successful.

Schematics is from datasheet of PCM2902. Circuit includes DAC and ADC, SPDIF output and input and HID part with 3 buttons for MUTE, VOL+ and VOL-. I used only DAC part. Other parts are not used. For high quality playback is needed to use external low-drop voltage stabiliser for DAC part. I used LP2951CM which was available at local store. Output voltage is set to about 3.7V with two resistors. Circuit board is designed regarding to good ground placement and separating of analog and digital ground. These ground are connected in one point at USB connector. [via]

USB Audio Digital to Analog Converter - [Link]

In this project I created an infrared (IR) link that provides bi-directional communication between the NXT and the new Power-Functions system, which consists of a battery box, motors, a remote control (an IR transmitter) and an IR receiver that controls the motors.

I previously built an IR transmitter for the NXT which used an MSP430 microcontroller and which was able to send Sony IR commands (the specifications of this protocol are widely available). In this project, I wanted to achieve three additional goals:

* To analyse the Power-Functions IR protocol, for which no documentation is publicly available.
* To build a system that could not only send IR commands, but could also receive and decode them.
* To experiment with AVR’s, another family of microcontrollers.

There were several reasons that I wanted to experiment with the AVR’s. Compared to the MSP430 microcontrollers, the AVR family offers many more chips in DIP packages (large but easy to prototype with), they run at wider supply voltages (most can tolerate at least 2.7-5.5V and some operate down to 1.8V), and their pins can supply a lot of current (up to 40mA for a single pin). The wide range of supply voltages means that they can be connected to the 4.3V supply of the NXT’s ports directly without a regulator, and the ability of the pins to supply a lot of current simplifies some circuits, such as when the chip needs to drive a bipolar transistor or a LED. Another advantage of the AVR is that they can be programmed using a wide variety of simple circuits, not just with proprietary programming devices. [via]

An Infra-Red Link Using an AVR - [Link]

This PCB drill is made of wood and looks really cool. Wouldn’t mind to have one on my table. Design is very unique - it uses various custom made parts, motors from old printers and VCR’s. Author even simulated all design code on a Labcenter’s Proteus VSM.

“Made from Dremel drill and drill press. I removed the bottom plate & mounted the column to the back with U-bolts. Acrylic is so easy to work with. It can be cut, drilled milled & glued and it’s very strong, doesn’t warp or break easily. The design is the same as the big PCB drills, the table moves, not the drill head. With the exception the real machine tables I’ve worked around ride on air. Like the old air hockey tables Important note: These NEMA teen motors don’t have enough torque to drive the table (no bearings).” [via]

Full PCB Drill Project - [Link]

The Windmeter is an anemometer designed to measure and record wind speed distribution from 0 to 17+ meters per second. It was designed for high reliability, ease of construction, and for a wide environmental range. Data is logged over a period of 30.46 days (1/12 of a year), and then saved for 11 months. The data can be retrieved with a laptop computer any time within the 12 months of logging. The Windmeter is self-powered by a solar panel and battery. Calibration of the Windmeter can be done against a car’s speedometer or better yet a GPS receiver. The Windmeter should cost you under $300 Can. to make. [via]

Windmeter / Anemometer - [Link]

I’m very proud to announce a new board, designed and developed by the RepRap Research Foundation. Its called the Magnetic Rotary Encoder, and it uses a magnet to provide positional feedback information. It is based around the AS5040 chip, and provides 10-bits of resolution per rotation (1024 different positions!) It has 5 different output modes, a 6.1mm hole that fits the magnet for easy aligning, plenty of diagnostic LEDs for coolness, and 6 different mounting holes for ease of use, including GM3 gearmotor mounting holes.

Magnetic Rotary Encoder v1.0 - [Link]

In this project there are actually 3 chargers combined in a single PCB, each charger having an output voltage of 4.2V. You can cascade them to become charger fit for 2 or 3 cels Lipo pack. The transformer used is 3 x 8 VAC. As more and more devices are powered with LiPo batteries such a charger could come handy some day.

DIY LiPo Charger - [Link]

Before starting this Ethernet project the author did of course some prototyping and then he noticed alreadythat UDP was not a problem with lots of space left on the atmega88. Therefore he was quite confident that TCP + HTTP will work. TCP/IP was invented more than 25 years ago. Todays microcontrollers provide almost the computing power a standard computer had at that time. No java or xml was used at that time. Things were done in smart and efficient ways. Webserver Based On ATMega88 - [Link]