As system speeds increase and designs shrink, circuit designers increasingly must debug signal integrity problems. Debugging common digital problems with a scope article tells how to effectively use your high speed oscilloscope to debug modern digital circuits. The ideal digital signal has fast transitions and only two states: high and low. In the real world, →
There are many Arduino-compatible microcontroller boards nowadays. The Ruggeduino is a ruggedized Arduino-compatible microcontroller board. Features include overcurrent and overvoltage protection on all I/O pins and 5V/3.3V outputs, ESD protection on all I/O pins and USB port, total microcontroller overcurrent protection, and operation at up to 24V. There are some things a regular Arduino will →
Why modern high tech electronics fail? Too often the reason for that is electrolytic capacitor failure. I have had a quite high number of electronics that has failed by this reason after few years of service. I have had a quite number of devices failed by capacitor: PC motherboard, PC graphics card, set-top-box, DVD player. →
I have participated in Free Product Road Testing program by Farnell. Farnell indentified my blog to road test some of their products. I was willing to participate, because what’s more fun than free high tech products to test. The first product i got was Arduino UNO. Arduino Uno is a a microcontroller board based on →
I have earlier written about 555 timer design contest. 555 Servo Controller was winner in several categories. It looked so simple and “have seen that eariler” type of circuit that I wondered why this was so winning circuit: Finally after few days I got time to check out the Simple 555 timer based servo controllers →
I have earlier written about 555 timer design contest. The contest is over and winning circuits have been found. Here is one very interesting contest entry (got second place in Minimalist category): AM radio receiver built around 555 timer IC. Look at the following video that presents the circuit. →
Google announced on Tuesday a new feature of the Android operating system called Android @ Home. This framework and associated functions promise to transform an Android device into a home automation controller that connects and directs all of the devices and appliances in the user’s home: gaming consoles, lighting, appliances, irrigations systems and anything else →
Testing audio-noise-reduction circuits, PLLs (phase-locked loops), and audio-frequency filters may require a noisy sine wave. Generate noisy sine waves with a sound card article tells that using a typical computer sound card, free software, and an external amplifier circuit, you can create a noisy sine wave. So a sound card, software, and an amplifier circuit →
Audiophiles seem to revel in minor controversies – vinyl vs CD’s, tubes versus solid state, capacitor, wires, magic dots… and negative feedback. At one extreme (“objectivists” and engineers), the position is that “feedback makes amplifiers perfect”. At the other extreme (“subjectivists”) usually claim that “feedback is a menacing succubus that sucks the life out of →