Electronics-Lab.com Blog

Olympia, WA, April 29, 2013, Olympia Circuits introduces the Arno Shield to expand their line of products for new Arduino users.  The Arno Shield contains all the components necessary to learn Arduino programming when plugged into an Arduino compatible board without any messy wires.  The original Arno Learning Kit was introduced last year and received a great response as an innovative approach to learning the basics of electronics and Arduino.  The shield provides another way for new users to dive into the world of Arduino and breaks down barriers to learning about microcontrollers.

The Arno Shield will be available for purchase at olympiacircuits.com on May 2nd.

The Arno Shield shares the same features of the Arno, but in a familiar shield form factor.  Bring your own Arduino compatible board, drop in the shield and start learning to write sketches.

The Arno Shield comes with the well regarded book “Learn Arduino with the Arno” which gives step-by-step instructions for more than forty projects.  All the components for the projects are built into the Arno Shield, so no wiring is necessary, just plug and play.  The Arno shield, like the original Arno, is fully compatible with the Arduino programming language and integrated development environment.

To allow for a wide range of learning projects, the shield includes the following devices:

• Four green LEDs
• One RGB LED
• One infrared LED
• Two momentary pushbutton switches for digital inputs
• One thumbwheel potentiometer to introduce analog measurements and controls
• One piezo element to create tones and measure vibrations
• One phototransistor to detect infrared and visible light
• An I2C digital temperature sensor to introduce between-device digital communication

Users of the Arno have enjoyed the ability to dive right in to programming without messing with wires and small parts.  Like the original Arno, the Arno Shield and an Arduino compatible board make a good travel kit that wonʼt get you hung up in security. For more information see the product page at http://www.olympiacircuits.com/arno-shield.html and contact info@olympiacircuits.com.

Olympia Circuits announces the Arno Shield - [Link]

Drawing only microamps (other than load current), this circuit switches in accordance with ambient light levels. Raju Baddi writes:

You can use an LED as a photoelectric sensor. A previous Design Idea shows that such a switch is highly power-efficient, consuming almost no power (Reference 1). However, you cannot adjust that configuration to switch at the desired light intensity. You can adjust the circuit in this Design Idea to any threshold level of light intensity necessary to maintain the on state of the photoelectric switch while retaining almost the same power efficiency of the original circuit

Adjust power-efficient LED switch to any light intensity – [Link]

An application note from Microchip: Interfacing a 4×4 Matrix keypad with an 8-Bit GPIO expander

This application note discusses interfacing a 4×4 matrix keypad with MCP23X08 8-Bit GPIO Expander. This application note references the MCP23X08/17 GPIO Expander Keypad/LCD Demo Board (GPIODM-KPLCD). GPIO Expanders provide easy I/O expansion using standard serial interfaces such as I2C and SPI. They are especially useful in applications where pin count is limited on the microcontroller unit (MCU) or if remote inputs / outputs (I/O’s) are needed. It is best to think of an 8-bit GPIO Expander like adding another 8-bit wide digital port to the MCU. This application note does not detail all of the features of the MCP23X08. Refer to the MCP23008/MCP23S08 Data Sheet, “8-Bit I/O Expander with Serial Interface” (DS21919) for more information.

[via]

Interfacing a 4×4 Matrix keypad with an 8-Bit GPIO expander - [Link]

Have you ever wanted to take a standard voltage op-amp and turn it into a high voltage output circuit? Here is a technique that requires some shunt regulators to power the chip and some current limiting transistor circuitry for the output. This example should work upto +/- 120V.

Make an Op-Amp High-Voltage Output Circuit - [Link]

Carl @ SolderSplash Labs has written an article about their new project known as DipCortex:

It’s an ARM Cortex M3/M0 in a 40 pin dip package and USB socket. It has two version a NXP LPC1347 M3 and a LPC11U24 M0, the pin out roughly follows a certain range of 40pin 8bit micros. [via]

DipCortex – ARM DipCortex in a dip package with USB - [Link]

Christopher Hawkins made this cool DIY 3d printed stepper motor: [via]

This is a programmable stepper motor and driver that I made out of some nails, magnet wire, neodymium magnets, a digispark microcontroller, and a 3D printed piece that I designed around these things. My goal was to make something about the size of a business card that moved. You can’t exactly fit it in your wallet but it does indeed move. It just a first draft- there’s lots of room for improvement. It has a step angle of 15 degrees (although the way I’m driving it, it is 7.5 degrees.)

3D Printed Stepper Motor - [Link]

We enlarged our stock offer of well-proven LEDs in a PLCC-2 package with new improved types.

KA-3528 series of SMT diodes is not a novelty and many of you may know it already for several years, however this series is being continuously enriched with new types. Kingbright as a reliable producer of LEDs always improves their specification, that´s why we also counterchange our offer with new types which overcome their predecessors. It ensures a long-term availability of LEDs in this package and at the same time it ensures still lower power supply demands thanks to a higher luminous intensity of new types.

KA-3528 are universal colour SMT LEDs in a PLCC-2 package, with higher luminous intensity and 20mA nominal current, suitable for backlighting of push-buttons, panels etc. KA-3528 also offers a possibility to choose from several colors (wave lengths) even within one color group.

The PLCC-2 package has good optical properties (reflector) and good thermal properties at the same time, what gives a supposal of a long lifetime. In the recent period we enriched our offer with for example these types – KA-3528LSGS, KA-3528QBCT-G a KA-3528VGS-A.
Detailed information will provide you the datasheets at particular types as well as overview of Kingbright SMT diodes. In case of interest in any Kingbright component, please contact us at info@soselectronic.com.

Universal SMT LEDs series KA-3528 will attract attention – [Link]

A wireless mesh Arduino board with USB, LiPo battery charger, built in range testing and over-the-air programming… cheap enough to leave in your project!

Gregor @ inDevice.ca have developed a low cost wireless Arduino board. It is based on the ATMega128RFA1 and uses Atmel’s wireless mesh stack. It also has a built in V-USB port for the bootoader and serial terminal and is fully compatible with Arduino. Some other unique features weʼve added is built-in range testing and wireless programming. There is a new video up showing two wireless boards working together and accepting commands from a WiFi shield. Right now they have a page up on Indiegogo, check it out.

miniSWARM – Scalable Wireless Arduino Radio Module - [Link]

Steven Keeping writes:

The brushless DC (BLDC) motor is becoming increasingly popular in sectors such as automotive (particularly electric vehicles (EV)), HVAC, white goods and industrial because it does away with the mechanical commutator used in traditional motors, replacing it with an electronic device that improves the reliability and durability of the unit.

An Introduction to Brushless DC Motor Control - [Link]

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Washington University in St. Louis developed ultrathin, flexible optoelectronic devices – including LEDs the size of individual neurons – that are lighting the way for neuroscientists in the field of optogenetics and beyond.

Optogenetics is the process by which genetically-programmed neurons or other cells can be activated by subjecting them to light. Among other things, the technology helps scientists understand how the brain works, which could in turn lead to new treatments for brain disorders. Presently, fiber optic cables must be wired into the brains of test animals in order to deliver light to the desired regions. That may be about to change, however, as scientists have created tiny LEDs that can be injected into the brain. [via]

Tiny Injectable LEDs Help Neuroscientists Study the Brain - [Link]