Electronics and Embedded Programming V2 - Developers

[QUOTE=Chryseus;31952585]Yeah they only do digital scopes, I recommend actually having both an analog and digital scope if you're serious about electronics. Analog scopes have a fast update rate which is useful since it gives you a much better idea of what the signal your looking at is, they also look very cool. Digital scopes are great for viewing non-repetitive signals such as serial data and offer much more advanced triggering methods and other features but suffers from fairly slow update rates unless you can afford a really good digital oscilloscope like the Agilent InfiniiVision 2000X series ($2000+). In any case, have fun with your scope ! [b]Edit[/b] I built a little triangle wave generator for amplifier testing: [img]http://i.imgur.com/ogUc6.jpg[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/WE8nu.png[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/6KhIG.png[/img] Peak output is about 620mV at 5kHz, output impedance approximately 150 ohms for the op-amp I'm using.[/QUOTE] Sweet, keep up! I love analog designs. So does industry.

[QUOTE][img]http://i.imgur.com/uZuXv.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] Finally got to assembling my MintyBoiost kit! Worked on the first try too!

Snip [editline]27th August 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=i300;31980548]Finally got to assembling my MintyBoiost kit! Worked on the first try too![/QUOTE] I have a usb host port I have from a usb extender. Will I beable to use that for something like a mintyboost?

Is it possible to burn the arduino bootloader without another arduino or a serial port (or one of the fucking expensive burner-things)

[QUOTE=bobthe2lol;31989899]Is it possible to burn the arduino bootloader without another arduino or a serial port (or one of the fucking expensive burner-things)[/QUOTE] Then what are you going to burn it with?!

[QUOTE=benjojo;31990077]Then what are you going to burn it with?![/QUOTE] The usb cable? Wait, first I need to know if that is actually the problem. When I try to upload code to it it does this: Rx flashes 3x wait 2-3 seconds Rx flashes Then arduino ide says [code] avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00 avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51 [/code]

[QUOTE=bobthe2lol;31990171]The usb cable? Wait, first I need to know if that is actually the problem. When I try to upload code to it it does this: Rx flashes 3x wait 2-3 seconds Rx flashes Then arduino ide says [code] avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00 avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51 [/code][/QUOTE] You need to burn the bootloader (the error you posted is known, basically it shows that the AVR isn't responding with Arduino protocol). For that, you need an AVR programmer. You can either buy a USBtinyISP (clone), or build a parallel port based [url=http://files.myopera.com/CrazyTerabyte/atmega8/AVR-bsd.png]DAPA programmer[/url], and then burn the software with [url=http://dybkowski.net/content/en/node/15]ISP Programmer[/url] (works on Windows 7, too). Just be sure to select your programmer wiring in the programmer settings. PM / XMPP me if you need help.

So I got home today, and... [img]http://f.anyhub.net/3ZCE[/img][img]http://f.anyhub.net/3ZCG[/img] [img]http://f.anyhub.net/3ZCH[/img][img]http://f.anyhub.net/3ZCI[/img] :dance:

So I just started learning about impedance in my electricity classes but my teacher is doing a piss poor job of explaining things. He showed us some formulas and we've been doing examples but I have no conception of how it works or why. Could someone with some spare time explain it for a newbie or direct me to a source I can read up on it. I tried wikipedia and got a headache, my understanding of trigonometry and advanced algebra isn't what it should be.

I am in for a piece of information about impedance too, having a hard time understanding the concept of it, and I think it would help a lot since I get almost to encounter the term on a daily base (read transmitter building).

Impedance isn't much different from resistance. You can think of the imaginary axis as introducing phase delay. Ideal capacitors and inductors have no DC resistance, they only shift the phase between voltage and current by 90 degrees, so they only have imaginary impedance. It actually makes a lot of sense after you kind of understand Euler's formula and all that. That being said, I still have some trouble with the math from time to time, mostly because I don't use it enough.

If anyone needs help with impedance or anything else contact me via: [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/chryseus8086]Steam[/url] Google Talk: [email]Chryseus8086@gmail.com[/email] WLM: [email]Chryseus8086@hotmail.co.uk[/email] [QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;32007061]That being said, I still have some trouble with the math from time to time, mostly because I don't use it enough.[/QUOTE] You can have this then [url]http://chryseus8086.co.uk/electronics/impedance-ref.pdf[/url]

I am constantly running out of breadboard because they either melt or I don't want to tear apart my old projects...

I think melting breadboards is bad. Just thinking. Why don't you work with bare pcb sheets? Easier to mount a cooling block to that. (Ofcourse you can also mount cooling stars on your transistors)

Why not use perfboard?

[QUOTE=Azur;32075031]Why not use perfboard?[/QUOTE] Because you have to spend time soldering it ? And if you want your components back well then you have to desolder it all.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;32075055]Because you have to spend time soldering it ? And if you want your components back well then you have to desolder it all.[/QUOTE] Well he said he didn't want to tear apart his old projects, and perfboard is semi-permanent and cheaper than buying more breadboards :v: And it's harder to melt them

Maybe not entirely to topic but this is probably the best thread to ask. //backstory So a while back I replaced my ceiling lamp with a ceiling fan which had three spotlights. The spotlights attached are 50w halogens that are bright as fuck but due to their directed nature and the central placement in the room they don't illuminate my room very efficiently. I'm always blocking the light because it's coming from the middle so it's useless when I'm trying to work with something at my desk and the same thing happens if I'm getting something from my shelf or anything like that, it's basically a piss poor lighting solution. After playing the new Deus Ex I decided that many small low effect spotlights ceiling mounted close to the walls would provide excelent ambient lighting, and to save power and money I decided on LED spotlights. Problem is any LED spotlights you buy from a store are insanely expensive and always come in sets of 1 or 3, I need 7. So I decided to make them myself. //end backstory I decided on buying some of these: [url]http://s.dealextreme.com/search/led+driver.html?category=410[/url] and a bunch of LED's and make the housing myself somehow (still very early in the planning phase) but I hit a snag when I realized I have no understanding of luminosity and the units it goes by. Basically what I need is for someone to tell me which LED's I should get. I want a warm white/yellowish glow (like in deus ex HR if you've played it). My room is roughly 4x3 meters (small I know) and one 3m wall is occupied by closets and shelves, I wanna place a total of 7 LED spotlights evenly spaced in the ceiling about half a meter from the wall, one in each corner of the room and one in between each corner spotlight except on the wall where my closets and shelves are. That's a very convoluted explanation and a picture prolly would have made more sense but eh. The spotlights will not be the only source of light, they will be primarily ambient lighting and shouldn't light up more than an average cheap-o 3v lightbulb flashlight. Bonus props for ideas about how to wire everything and make it dimmable.

[QUOTE=chipset;32095325]text[/QUOTE] There are two main measurements when it comes to light, luminous flux and luminous intensity. Luminous flux is the total amount of visible light emitted by a source and is measured in Lumens(lm), an average light bulb emits around 800-1500 lumen. Luminous intensity is the intensity of the light, for example a focused beam from a flashlight has a great intensity (brightness) than just a plain lightbulb for the same amount of light, luminous intensity is measure in Candela(cd). For a 50W halogen you are almost certain to be getting 1000lm or more of light out of each one, if this is emitted 360 degrees the intensity is (1000lm / (4*Pi)) = 80cd~ In comparison LEDs give out between 10-500lm which emitted 360 degrees is 40cd. Since lighting calculation is a pain in the arse the best best thing to do is buy a LED with the highest lumen rating possible sometimes you can only find out the candela rating which is not very useful since it depends on the angle of the light emitted. In any case you're probably going to need 2-3 LEDs per spotlight which is the reason these things cost so much in the first place. For dimming you can use a MOSFET or BJT to drive the LEDs with a PWM signal to vary the on/off time.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;32100453]There are two main measurements when it comes to light, luminous flux and luminous intensity. Luminous flux is the total amount of visible light emitted by a source and is measured in Lumens(lm), an average light bulb emits around 800-1500 lumen. Luminous intensity is the intensity of the light, for example a focused beam from a flashlight has a great intensity (brightness) than just a plain lightbulb for the same amount of light, luminous intensity is measure in Candela(cd). For a 50W halogen you are almost certain to be getting 1000lm or more of light out of each one, if this is emitted 360 degrees the intensity is (1000lm / (4*Pi)) = 80cd~ In comparison LEDs give out between 10-500lm which emitted 360 degrees is 40cd. Since lighting calculation is a pain in the arse the best best thing to do is buy a LED with the highest lumen rating possible sometimes you can only find out the candela rating which is not very useful since it depends on the angle of the light emitted. In any case you're probably going to need 2-3 LEDs per spotlight which is the reason these things cost so much in the first place. For dimming you can use a MOSFET or BJT to drive the LEDs with a PWM signal to vary the on/off time.[/QUOTE] Great, thanks. I did notice after posting that dealextreme sells finished spots too so I think I'll opt out of building them myself but there's still an issue of wiring. There's one more thing though. My ceiling fan has this remote control that we installed when we put it there, it's basically a box with an IR reciever that lets me control fan speed and even dim the lights from a remote. It would be bitchin if I could add a dimmer for these LED spots to that remote so I'll probably post about that sometime in the future. But about the actual spots, I still don't know which to get. the 1w spots have 80-90 lumen but I don't know how that's going to look in real life. [url]http://s.dealextreme.com/search/with+driver.html?category=907[/url] by the way

[img]http://i.imgur.com/jJ6c6.jpg[/img] Shamelessly stolen from /r/electronics.

Is it true that the kronos IDE is just eclipse?

[QUOTE=Map in a box;32141451]Is it true that the kronos IDE is just eclipse?[/QUOTE] Code Composer is indeed eclipse.

I've been recommended by my tutor at school to take a look at this, and I must say that I am quite interested and this stuff seems awesome to experiment with. I'm doing a programmer course so I can see how this is relevant to my interests. Tutor told me that [url]http://www.antratek.com/index.html[/url] was a good (local) site to start with, but with the huge amount of stuff I have no idea what to get first. [url]http://antratek.nl/Arduino.html[/url] is the Arduino part of the website, he recommended me to go with Arduino, and after looking through the thread it seems most of you are using that as well. Anyone able to do some suggestions on what I should start with? There's like 3 starter kits on that page.

[QUOTE=Marlamin;32150695]I've been recommended by my tutor at school to take a look at this, and I must say that I am quite interested and this stuff seems awesome to experiment with. I'm doing a programmer course so I can see how this is relevant to my interests. Tutor told me that [url]http://www.antratek.com/index.html[/url] was a good (local) site to start with, but with the huge amount of stuff I have no idea what to get first. [url]http://antratek.nl/Arduino.html[/url] is the Arduino part of the website, he recommended me to go with Arduino, and after looking through the thread it seems most of you are using that as well. Anyone able to do some suggestions on what I should start with? There's like 3 starter kits on that page.[/QUOTE] I'd recommend you get the MSP430 launchpad from Ti, it does the same stuff as the arduino at a fraction of the price ($4.30 each). And don't get anything from that site it is very expensive, if you want parts buy from somewhere like Bitsbox, RS or Farnell.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;32151303]I'd recommend you get the MSP430 launchpad from Ti, it does the same stuff as the arduino at a fraction of the price ($4.30 each). And don't get anything from that site it is very expensive, if you want parts buy from somewhere like Bitsbox, RS or Farnell.[/QUOTE] The ATMega328 (ergo Arduino) is a MUCH more powerful microcontroller than the MSP430 in the Launchpad. 128 bytes of RAM vs 2kb RAM 2kb flash vs 32kb of flash 10 GPIO ports vs 23 GPIO Not to mention that the Arduino is way easier to get started with: there is a huge ecosystem of libraries, Arduino's Processing/Wiring environment (C++ with OO libraries) is very easy to started with, compared to using avrdude/CC/IAR for the MSP... Also, the newest Arduino can emulate other USB device classes than just a programmer. EDIT: What, you're going to tell me the MSP430G2211IPN14 is as powerful as an ATMega?

[QUOTE=q3k;32153120]The ATMega328 (ergo Arduino) is a MUCH more powerful microcontroller than the MSP430 in the Launchpad. 128 bytes of RAM vs 2kb RAM 2kb flash vs 32kb of flash 10 GPIO ports vs 23 GPIO Not to mention that the Arduino is way easier to get started with: there is a huge ecosystem of libraries, Arduino's Processing/Wiring environment (C++ with OO libraries) is very easy to started with, compared to using avrdude/CC/IAR for the MSP... Also, the newest Arduino can emulate other USB device classes than just a programmer.[/QUOTE] You can use the launchpad to program the entire 4x series which goes up to 120kb of flash and 8kb of ram. As for easier to use that depends on the person, I had no problem at all learning how to use the AVR chips. I would personally not touch the Arduino, firstly because it is very slow due due to bloated libraries and secondly the cost. For most simple things you don't need a lot of flash or ram which is why I recommend the MSP430 launchpad, it is cheap and easy to use and if you find you need more you can upgrade the chip. And if you want to do anything serious in electronics you can't rely on the Arduino.

[QUOTE=Chryseus;32153608]You can use the launchpad to program the entire 4x series which goes up to 120kb of flash and 8kb of ram.[/QUOTE] Yes, but we're talking about the chips included in the launchpad - you can as well buy an ATMega168 for $5 and use a parallel port programmer. [QUOTE=Chryseus;32153608]I would personally not touch the Arduino, firstly because it is very slow due due to bloated libraries[/quote] There's an overhead when booting the Arduino, but afterwards you're running native code, and you can make it as fast as you want. Want faster IO? #include <avr.h> and use memmapped IO. Want a faster LCD/servo/whatever library? Write your own, you'd do that with an MSP430 anyway. [QUOTE=Chryseus;32153608]and secondly the cost.[/quote] Arduino is not only about the official arduino.cc boards (which I wouldn't touch, either). There are tons of clones, ranging from $5. Not to mention you can easily build an Arduino environment with a PDIP ATMega and a RS232 converter out of a bunch of transistors or a PDIP MAX232. It's entirely feasible, even for a beginner.

[QUOTE=q3k;32153786]Yes, but we're talking about the chips included in the launchpad - you can as well buy an ATMega168 for $5 and use a parallel port programmer. There's an overhead when booting the Arduino, but afterwards you're running native code, and you can make it as fast as you want. Want faster IO? #include <avr.h> and use memmapped IO. Want a faster LCD/servo/whatever library? Write your own, you'd do that with an MSP430 anyway. Arduino is not only about the official arduino.cc boards (which I wouldn't touch, either). There are tons of clones, ranging from $5. Not to mention you can easily build an Arduino environment with a PDIP ATMega and a RS232 converter out of a bunch of transistors or a PDIP MAX232. It's entirely feasible, even for a beginner.[/QUOTE] If you are going to use it just like a normal AVR, what's the point of buying the Arduino?

Ordered a Arduino starter kit to see if I can make some fun stuff with that alone. I can always expand! Also saw some really awesome stuff on YouTube done with the Google Open Accessory Interface, if/when I ever get advanced enough to fiddle with that I'll be sure to make some neat stuff. (I think I have a toy Dalek around here somewhere. :dance:)