Blog
Linear announced a new voltage drop compensator IC. The LT®6110 is a precision high side current sense with a current mode output, designed for controlling the output voltage of an adjustable power supply or voltage regulator. This can be used to compensate for drops in voltage at a remote load due to resistance in a wire, trace or cable.
The LT6110 cable drop compensator improves voltage regulation at remote loads without the need for Kelvin sense wires. The LT6110 can be used with most types of voltage regulators and can provide several volts of load regulation compensation. The LT6110 will compensate for the voltage drop due to resistance in a wire, circuit board trace or cable and can improve regulation at the load by a factor of 10. It operates with supply voltages that range from 2V to 50V, making it suitable for high power USB, Power over Ethernet (PoE), remote instrumentation and remote industrial applications. The LT6110 reduces costs by eliminating sense wires which may be prone to misconnection or damage and it makes load regulation independent of wire size or length.
LT6110 cable/wire drop compensator - [Link]
USB OTG (On-The-Go) cable enables for example a simple connection of USB slave devices with a smartphone.
As we know, USB communications operates in such a way, that a Master (Host) device (usually a PC) controls all communication on the bus and Slave devices are only able to require attention. Slave devices are all common peripherials like printers, scanners, mouses, cameras, USB drives, mobile phones etc.
However, naturally there are situations, when we´d like to interconnect also devices, which usually operate in a Slave mode, for example a printer with a USB key, mobile phone with a USB key or with a keyboard etc. In this case we want one of the devices to act as a Master.
USB OTG solves this problem and enables to use a given USB device in a Master and in a Slave mode as well. A mode in which a device will operate is defined by wiring of an interconnecting cable itself (pin ID grounded or left floating). USB OTG is supported by many nowadays mobile devices, which can be switched to a Master mode by using of such a cable. That´s why, when you´ll use the USB-OTG cable, you can connect a USB drive, mouse, keyboard and other USB slave devices directly to your smartphone.
In case of interest, please contact us at info@soselectronic.com.
USB OTG – it´s better to be a master than a slave – [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]
RFduino: A finger-tip sized, Arduino compatible, wireless enabled microcontroller, low cost enough to leave in all of your projects!
The RFduino runs Arduino code and can do everything an Arduino can, plus much more. Using the RFduino USB shield, simply plug the RFduino into a USB port of any computer and use the Arduino IDE to load your Arduino sketch, which automatically begins running on the RFduino.Then you can detach the RFduino USB shield and plug the RFduino directly into your project.
Shrunk down an Arduino to the size of a finger-tip! - [Link]
Steve Taranovich writes:
Mophie, a California-based designer and manufacturer of mobile intelligent devices and accessories, developed the juice pack, the first ever “Works with iPhone” portable battery case certified by Apple. I contacted the company via e-mail for its help clarifying this design as well as the component types. It has not yet responded, so I give you my educated guesses. EDN readers are encouraged to weigh in with their own thoughts and expertise.
Teardown: Cell-phone charger: nice idea done right - [Link]
asidorenk @ obddiag.net pointed us to this great little USB to Serial board:
This USB to serial (TTL) converter project is easy to build, it is simple and inexpensive. It is based on the PL2303SA USB to USART bridge from Prolific. The PL2303SA chip is not required an external crystal as the internal clock oscillator is continuously tuning up to USB bus frequency. Having chip in SO-8 packaging does not require special soldering skills to assemble the project. Please note: the TX and RX signal levels are 3.3 Volts.
USB to Serial Breakout Board for Prolific PL2303SA - [Link]
voltsandbytes.com writes:
USB has established itself as the new standard for connectivity. That is why USB connectivity has become the “holy grail” of most embedded applications.
Well, let me get straight to the point. If you want to start developing projects with USB interface, you want to have the proper development tools. To have the tools that you need, you either have to buy or to do-it-yourself.
PIC18F4550 USB Development Board - [Link]
The TinyCircuits TinyDuino is an Arduino compatible board in an ultra compact package. Imagine the possibilities of having the full power of an Arduino Uno in a size less than a quarter!
Each module in the TinyDuino family has been optimized to include only the core circuits for it’s specific function to keep the size as low as possible at the best possible price. The main TinyDuino processor board includes the core processor circuitry, however the USB and DC power regulators have been offloaded to TinyShields. So for example, if you have a project that doesn’t need support for DC power above 5 volts, you don’t need to include the Power TinyShield, saving you money and keep the overall size down. Or if you don’t need USB on your project, you’d only need one USB TinyShield that you’d use to program your boards.
TinyDuino – Arduino Compatible Boards Smaller Than a Quarter! - [Link]
Alexander Holler writes: [via]
This page describes how you can use a small AVR device and a real-time clock (RTC) to build a hot-pluggable USB real-time clock (I’ve named it just usb-rtc), mainly for usage with ultra-low-cost hardware meant to be used with Linux.
The overall cost for one of those thingies I’m describing here is about 15€-20€, which isn’t really cheap. But I find it a valuable thingy because the result is a hot pluggable RTC, usable by almost any device which has USB. So it’s very likely you will use it for much longer than the device you currently want to build or search it for. In addition you might want to use it as a (hot pluggable) USB-I2C adapter too. The software I’m describing below already supports that.
How to build an USB real-time clock - [Link]
Brian Schmalz writes:
The UBW board is a small board that contains a Microchip PIC USB-capable microcontroller, headers to bring out all of the PICs signal lines (to a breadboard for example), only costs about $15-$20 to build and is powered from the USB connection.
UBW – USB Bit Whacker- inexpensive, simple input/output USB device - [Link]
