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No-name GU10 LED lamp teardown @ kuzyatech.com
In the usual Kuzyatech fashion, when something breaks, we must take it apart. Today, one of the ”early adopter” GU10 style LED lamps decided to fail mechanically.
No-name GU10 LED lamp teardown - [Link]
Alex over at InsideGadgets has posted an article describing how he built an ATtiny25 voltage controlled oscillator (VCO):
I recently bought a Rigol DS1052E and have been playing around with the different functionality it has. Eventually I came to the point that I’d like to see what frequency does to various components and wanted to build a voltage controller oscillator (VCO).
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ATtiny25 Basic VCO, RC oscillator overclocking and testing frequency pickup - [Link]
Chirp is a plant watering alarm – you put it into the soil near a plant and it emits a tiny chirp when the soil is too dry, reminding you to water the plant. Different levels of moisture can be set by pushing a single button. There is a light sensor on board, so the widget does not make noise at night. Chirp uses capacitive humidity sensing – this means no rusted electrodes and no soil electrolysis.
Chirp! – the plant watering alarm - [Link]
patrick @ plainlystated.com writes:
I bought an antique telegraph sounder a while back, and I’ve been working on a project that will click out emails from my Etsy store when I get an order. I’ve gone through several generations, and come up with something I really like. What follows is a description of my process for going from concept to finished piece. The code & PCB are open-source, and can be found on my github.
Generation 1 – Paper
The end goal I had in mind was to be able to push messages over the network, and have the telegraph sounder tap them out in morse code …
Concept to Finished Piece – Generations of an Electronics Project - [Link]
by Publitek European Editors:
In today’s wireless, connected world, ambient Radio Frequency (RF) energy is everywhere. Technically, this free-flowing energy can be captured, converted and stored for use in other applications. In fact, it is already in use in a number of ultra-low-power, battery-free applications, such as RFID tags, contactless smart cards, and wireless sensor networks. As a result of technological advances, harvested RF energy is just beginning to realize its wider potential, including charging batteries in smartphones and other portable devices. These enabling technologies include RF transceivers, power conversion circuits, and ultra-low-power microcontrollers, all of which are becoming ever more efficient.
Tune In, Charge Up: RF Energy Harvesting Shows its Potential - [Link]
Design a small, efficient 4A step-down converter in just minutes! New in EE-Sim, Maxim’s online design and simulation tool, are the MAX15050 and MAX15051. These 2mm x 2mm DC-DC regulators have integrated MOSFETs and other features that simplify and shrink your design. Use EE-Sim to evaluate the MAX15050 or MAX15051 for your next point-of-load power-supply project!
Learn more about the MAX15050, MAX15051 or go directly to the MAX15050 or MAX15051 in EE-Sim.
MAX15050 – Design a small, efficient 4A step-down converter - [Link]
Cheap low-speed dual channel PC/USB oscilloscope with STM32F3 microcontroller.
Miniscope v2d is based on STM32F303CBT6 microcontroller – LQFP48 device from STM32F3 family featuring:
- 32 kB RAM on data bus
- 8 kB RAM on instruction bus
- 128 kB FLASH memory
- USB device (full speed)
- 4 fast and flexible ADCs
- 12-bit DAC with two output channels
- 4 opamps that can work in PGA mode
- ROM bootloader with USB DFU option available
STM32F303-based low-speed PC/USB oscilloscope project – miniscope v2d - [Link]
With LEDs that require only one pin, you can do a lot with even just a 6-pin microcontroller!
A touch controlled light with 4xWS2812 RGB LEDs and ATtiny10. This is a small hardware project which utilizes the light_WS2812 library and the TinyTouchLib to implement a touch-button controlled RGB-LED light. Only two output pins of the ATtiny10 are used. Atmel Studio project and Eagle files are included.
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Tiny Touch Button - [Link]
Testing laptop battery: pinout, SMBus, charge capacity @ KuzyaTech.
As a result of visiting Hamfest, I ended up with a laptop to take apart – a fairly new Toshiba Satellite C675D with a broken screen. It’s not a Hamfest if you don’t bring home something to take apart of course! Today we’ll be testing the battery it came with to see if it’s salvageable.The date code says it was made in 11/2011.
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Testing laptop battery: pinout, SMBus, charge capacity - [Link]
Integrated circuit FT232R is becoming legendary and we bring you another example of FTDI USB chips usage.
In praxis we often face a requirement to communicate with devices, which have serial ports RS232, RS422 and RS485. As many devices – mainly notebooks, already usually don´t have these ports, it is necessary to use a converter to convert serial port to USB.
Company ComErgon, s.r.o. is long-term dedicated to development and production of such converters. ComErgon has in its offer models for RS232, RS422 a RS485 interfaces. USB to RS422 and RS485 converters are produced with a 1kV galvanic isolation, as lines on the RS422 and RS485 side can be lead even on long distances and an eventual overvoltage could be able to damage end devices. Version RS232-USB is available with galvanic isolation but also without isolation.
More detailed information and technical specification of these converters can be found at website of company ComErgon.
Company ComErgon focuses on development and production of converters for RS232, RS422, RS485, RS422/RS485 repeaters, serial to Ethernet interface modules, GPRS, Fiber Optic, 433MHz, current loop and other.
Customer solution: Trouble-free RS232, RS422, RS485 to USB conversion - [Link]
