Microcontrollers

AVR HV Rescue Shield PCBs are in, kits available soon.

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Big news – the AVR HV Rescue Shield PCBs arrived yesterday!  I’m currently testing them and will post information about kits for sale as soon as I verify that everything is working properly.

This is actually the second spin of the PCB but the first to bear the ‘Rescue Shield’ name.  The first spin was a one-off prototype to check a couple things out, mostly related to the 5V to 12V step up converter.  That design allowed me to fix a couple bugs before doing a production run with the improved design, show below.

So far all I can say is that the step up converter works perfectly.  (Yipee!)

More details to come!

AVR HV Rescue Shield PCB - Top

AVR HV Rescue Shield PCB - Bottom

Electronics

DIY 8-bit Computer: Big Mess o’ Wires

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Steve Chamberlin created an 8-bit computer from discrete logic and called his project the Big Mess o’ Wires.

The BMOW runs at 2MHz and has 512K RAM and 16K ROM.  It is constructed with primarily 7400 series logic and over 1048 wirewrap connections.

The feature list is very impressive:

Here’s a video of a music test from his site:

I am completely blown away by this project.  Has someone invited Steve to the Maker Faire??  I want to see this thing in person!

Check out his site and prepare to spend at least an hour looking at all of his plans and construction photos.

Totally amazing.

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Electronics, Events, Microcontrollers

100th post! Tony’s Wifi Radio Sketchup Model, Dorkbot Tonight

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100 Posts!

This is my 100th post to the blog.

When I started blogging in July of last year I wasn’t sure what I would post about or where all of this would go.  Eight months later, the blog has exceeded my expectations in many (and many unexpected) ways.  The major driving force behind this blog has always been my desire to share my projects and my passion for electronics with the world, in addition to (hopefully) inspiring some other people to do cool things with electronics as well.

My favorite post?  Definitely the Arduino-based AVR High Voltage Programmer.  I never expected such a simple circuit to help so many people.  There has been so much ongoing interest in this project that I am putting together an Arduino shield kit based on the original design.  The kit features a slick double-sided PCB and an integrated 5 to 12V step up converter so you don’t need an external 12V supply to use the programmer.  More details very soon!

Tony’s Wifi Radio Sketchup Model

Wifi Radio Enclosure - Google Sketchup Model

Tony created this awesome Google Sketchup model of an enclosure for my Wifi Radio project.  After I made a very crude first draft, Tony took my design and turned it into something that is sort of modern, sort of retro.  Perfect!

Dorkbot Tonight

In other news, there is a Dorkbot SF meeting tonight at Parisoma at 7:30PM.  Arrive early to get a seat!  Details at dorkbot-sf.

Electronics, Microcontrollers

Hal’s Lab: Standalone Weather Station

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Hal created a neat project by taking parts of my Wifi Radio project and repurposing them to do something completely different.  His Standalone Weather Station changes the color of an LED based on the weather forecast for tomorrow.  If temperatures are trending warmer, the color changes towards red. Colder – blue.

His project is very well documented and includes code for both the ATmega168-based circuit that drives the LED using PWM and the shell script on the router that communicates with Weather Underground to get the forecast.

Nice work, Hal!

Hal’s Lab: Standalone Weather Station, Part 1

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