Electronics and Programming for All
Microcontrolers
New Development Board Offering from Protostack
Jan 9th
Protostack has released a new and improved version of it’s 28-pin development board. It’s priced at $9.60 and includes a number of welcome changes from the one I reviewed here in a previous post.
Read on to see what’s changed….
Handy Link: Programing an AVR with a Bus Pirate
Jan 7th
The guys over at HintShop have published a tutorial on using a bus pirate as an In-Circuit Programmer to flash firmware to an AVR Microcontroller using SPI.
As if that wasn’t cool enough, they also include instructions showing how multiple Mircocontrollers can be flashed by one Bus Pirate on the same board, in their tutorial! Is there anything this little gadget can’t do?
Handy link: Arduino Ethernet Bumper Pack
Jan 7th
Georg Kaindl, over at gkaindl.com has developed a collection of libraries for the Arduino environment which allows developers to make use of the DHCP, DNS and Bonjour (Apple Computers’ implementation of Zeroconf) protocols in their network-enabled Arduino projects. Documentation for each individual library (including installation instructions) can be found on Georg’s site.
If anyone is using these libraries in their own projects already, then feel free to share you experiences in the comments section. I’d love to hear about some of the cool stuff other people have made with them.
Handy Link: Using the AVR EEPROM in GCC-AVR
Dec 11th
EEPROM memory can be extremely useful in Microcontroller projects, either as a fail-safe mechanism (to stores the state of your outputs so you can restore them if power is lost) or as a non-volatile storage area for data gathered via sensors.
This tutorial from AVR Freaks explains how to read from and write to EEPROM memory using AVR-GCC. Hope its useful to someone.
From alan-parekh.com: Single Button Code Entry System
Dec 9th
Forget keypads and RFID tags, the guys over at alan-parekh.com have come up with the simplest possible user interface for a code entry system: a single button. Sold in kit form via their online store and incorperating a PIC 16F628A microcontroler and relay, this kit allows you to program and input a four-digit code using only one button.
Details and a video explaining how the kit works can be found here.
Simple LAN Controlled Stereo Audio Switch
Dec 7th
I needed an idea that I could use to teach myself about using a relay with Microcontrollers and solve that age old problem: Switching between speakers and headphones on my PC without having to actually get up and mess around in the rats nest of wire’s behind it.
The solution: Use a 5v DPDT relay, a few 3.5mm stereo sockets and an Ethernet-capable Arduino to create a simple audio switch which would allow me to switch one audio source (my PC’s Soundcard in this case) to one of two outputs (headphones or speakers) via a web interface running on the Arduino from the comfort of my web browser.
Handy Link: AVR Timer Calculator
Nov 30th
Ok, here’s another little gem I came across on the web that I think you’ll find useful: A web-based Timer calculator, courtesy of Frank at circleofcurrent.com
Just put in your clock frequency and the time (in seconds) you need to count to and let the calculator do the rest.
8 bit and 16 bit timer resolution values are catered for and he even includes a prescaler function so you can experiement with different prescaler values.
Note, You’ll need to make sure that you have Javascript enabled in your browser to use it.
AVR C Bit Level Operations Guide
Nov 28th
Found this very comprehensive guide (Link is a PDF document), during my travels on Google, showing how to perform bit-level operations in AVR C. Hope it’s useful to someone.
If you’ve not got a PDF reader to hand, then you can use Google’s Quick View link to this guide to view it in your browser
From extremeelectronics: AVR USART Tutorial
Sep 17th
Ok, yet another link to another site, but screw it, I’m bored so here it is!
Here’s another resource that should be useful to anyone getting to grips with the black art of AVR USART comms. The guys at extremeelectonics have published a very comprehensive tutorial on the various registers related to the AVR USART peripherial, how to set them, etc.
AVR Baud Rate Calculator
Sep 17th
Having recently starting to teach myself AVR microcontroller development without the comfort zone offered by the Arduino, one problem that really gets on my nerves as an absolute beginner is trying to calculate the UBRR (USART Baud Rate Register) value for a given baud rate and crystal/resonator speed when using the USART communications functionality of the AVR.
Enter WormFood’s AVR Baud Rate Calculator. This site has been mentioned on blogs before, but it’s so useful that I’d be mad not to mention it here as well!
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