There are many articles that explain embedded software, bare metal programming, and architectural design, providing a lot of practical tips. The great majority of projects, particularly those that require quick but nice prototypes, are based on Arduino. However, starting an Arduino project seems not to require any theoretical knowledge of firmware architecture, bare metal, and … Continue reading Toggling a pin, thoughts on code portability
In the last PWM discussion, we devised how is composed the average current, specially when the PWM frequency is faster than it should be, making the period duration comparable with the rise and fall slopes duration of the current. The results were packed up in 2 equations to summarize what is the best choice for … Continue reading Dimming LEDs (part 3/3) – The overlooked boundaries
In the previous article we tried to analyze what is the Contrast Ratio in a LED driver and how the non-idealities are giving a boundary on the minimum allowable PWM period. That was quite worth a full article, but a big part was indeed missing. Here we will go through how the PWM period and … Continue reading Dimming LEDs (part 2/3) – Sneaky non-linear events while using the PWM technique
Things must come to an end. I decided to make a new library experiment, putting an ending mark to the DS1307 Real Time Clock hacking project, because the project was born as an encapsulation of a real RTC in a PIC microcontroller, wrapping an RTC hardware engine to emulate the DS1307; then a subsequent development on … Continue reading DS1307 RTC Emulator – The Arduino library
I have spent a lot of time on playing and later working on the I2C buses. I almost always used self developed libraries, both for learning and job requirement purposes. Then, when experimenting with a portability of a project in the Arduino environment, I started to trying the official Wire library, discovering some incompatibilities for my … Continue reading HardWire, the enhanced Arduino Wire library
I am playing with LEDs for few month and during that time some little projects were born, but now I need a system to handle the logical part and the power distribution. I simply just can't use an Arduino board, or any other development board: I need a proper power handling embedded in a small space, … Continue reading Lino Project
It has been a while since the last LED related article. Was experimented the linear current source, its pros and cons and the field of application. Now arises the need of a small version, handling the same high power, things that are contrapposed in the linear regulator. I need something that I can bring with … Continue reading Tiny, robust, low cost, fail-safe LED driver: the Glighter-S project
Recently I found that today almost lighbulbs are made with power LEDs. And surprisingly most of them are made so cheap that the controller fails far away before its lifetime. At least for what I've experienced with few models. Most of them seems to work well, and I think that LEDs are the future for … Continue reading Current sources for LEDs: firsts DIY impressions
Maybe some of you knows well the so called GertDuino, an expansion board of the RaspberryPi. It is like an Arduino which can communicate with the Rasp, and moreover it also mount an Atmega48 which can be used to emulate an RTC. Yes, I'm going to talk about this. The challenge: proof-of-concept of commercial real … Continue reading DS1307 Real Time Clock hacking: the emulation
What happens if some one try to piss off people and make them scream, and you can't calm down them? What happens if you are in a crowded environment where people start talking when they shouldn't? Or what happens if you are one of those people who talk constantly loud out, but wants to improve … Continue reading The anti-loud siren
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