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Clarity of Vision
A simple serial port graphing program helps debug high speed sensor data.This week, I have been debugging a high speed 24-bit ADC, connected to an STM32F303 ARM microcontroller. Unfortunately my usual...
View ArticleFurther Wanderings in Low Power Land
On this Arduino Day 2014, I thought I would investigate very low power operation of the ATmega328P-PU.This post is inspired by Nathan Seidle's Spark Fun post of 2011 "Adventures in Low Power Land".Nate...
View ArticleA little bit shifty
Experimenting with Shift Registers and ArduinoShift registers are probably the least understood class of devices used in microcontroller and hardware design, yet they are central to so many common...
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A little more shifty....
RecapIn the previous post, I quickly reviewed the techniques for interfacing shift registers to Arduino based hardware and highlighted some simple code for reading and writing to the external shift...
View ArticleSIMPL Revisited
SIMPLSIMPL stands for Serial Interpreted Minimal Programming Language.It provides a quick means of programming microcontrollers for I/O interaction, using short text strings.What this means is that a...
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Make Life Easy, Make it Modular
This is a follow on to a post I wrote back in March 2014. As integrated circuits get smaller, and more powerful, it becomes increasingly difficult for the hobbyist to utilise them easily. Soldering...
View ArticleUsing the SDcard, RTC and SRAM on WiNode and Nanode RF
This is an update of a post to the Nanode Website from October 2012.The original is hereGetting to know Nanode and Winode HardwarePosted: October 1, 2012 by Ken - No CommentsPart 1. Using the SD...
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Plot It - a useful graphing programme for serial data
Plot It allows data to be exported in various image formatsAn immensely powerful technique when developing smart sensor systems is the ability to capture data in real time from a microcontroller and...
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As Easy as ABC (and D)
The Arduino has definitely been a major force behind the open hardware movement, democratising hardware and making it much easier to develop microcontroller based gizmos.However, despite it's...
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A Sneaky Week In Snowdonia
It's not every day your daily commute includes a view of Snowdon in the early morning November sunshine!Sometimes you just need to get away......With an enforced week off work in late November, I...
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At Last - The Long Awaited Relay Board!
A General Purpose 3 Channel 16A Relay BoardEvery year, for about 5 years now, I get motivated on a long term project of mine, to make an open source heating control system, and every year, I get...
View ArticleHello 2015 - What's New?
FPGAsLast summer, I backed a couple of Kickstarter campaigns - and now they have both delivered. I am now the owner of a couple of FPGA boards - and I am slowly learning FPGA technology - aided by the...
View ArticleSIMPL - A Quick Start Guide
SIMPL Serial Interpreted Microcontroller Programming LanguageThis draft post attempts to introduce SIMPL - a simple interpreted language for microcontrollers.SIMPL is a small language resource that...
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What can I get for a Pound?
Poundland don't sell microcontrollers in their raw form - but if they did, they would probably sell these.The STM32F0 range of 32 bit ARM micrcontrollers are designed for low cost applications that...
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Using the Arduino for Retro-Nostalgic Computing
In just about 4 weeks time we come to the 50th anniversary of the PDP-8 Minicomputer. (23rd March 1965).As a tribute to this game-changing machine, in the last week I have been thinking about the user...
View ArticleThe PDP-8: A lesson in longevity
The PDP-8 was launched in March 1965 and was produced in various forms for the next 15 years, each time benefiting from technological advances and cost reduction.Now as we approach the 50th anniversary...
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Big Computer -Little Computer
Early in 1963, a couple of engineers from the recent technology startup company Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), drove up to Ontario, Canada to visit a nuclear science laboratory at Chalk...
View ArticleUseful Hardware Helper Functions
As microcontrollers continue to offer ever increasing performance and overwhelming arrays of sophisticated on-chip peripherals, the task of getting an unfamiliar mcu up and running may at first appear...
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Heating Controls - There has to be a better way
Every year, around this time, I get interested in improving my central heating control system. With time off work, and heating being very important over the Christmas break, it's easy to start thinking...
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Move Over Arduino - ARM is the future.
"Here's One I Did Earlier" - The ARMiGoBackgroundIn the last year, I have designed several pcbs using the ST Microelectronics range of ARM Cortex microcontrollers, M0, M3 and M4 series, including my...
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