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We talk about solder paste, cheap kapton stencils, how to make a home-made vacuum pick-up tool, and toaster oven reflow temperature profiles. Read More

This sms-to-LED tutorial shows how to automate the manual button input on this $13 scrolling LED belt buckle with an arduino, and then how to pass SMS messages through it. A USB Host shield connects an android phone that passes SMS messages on. Full code is on the tutorial page.







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Our 16X PWM LED FADER board is now completely open source. The firmware (mplab project in C), schematic and layout in kicad, and BOM are all available. Hopefully this project will be a good starting off point for someone needing high resolution PWM control of mosfets, and lots of them.

The brain is a dsPIC33FJ32GS608, which features 16+ PWM outputs with 1.04ns duty cycle resolution. This is used to provide full 16bit control over 16 channels, with a very fast update rate. With SPI, you can send commands fast enough to smoothly fade all 16 channels, although many fades and chases are built in. A simple command / value protocol accepts control from SPI, 5V UART, or RS232.

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We're making a new product called VMeter that's a USB MIDI Controller Touch Strip and Display. It's going to be sold through a new site: VMeter.net. In addition to a music controller, it has the potential to be used as a general purpose input touch strip and output meter display. It uses a USB HID interface (like a mouse or keyboard), making it relatively easy to interface with. We'll be publishing both the protocol and computer-side source shortly. You could even use it with an arduino if you get a USB host shield. There are 8 capacitive touch sensors on the inside, and all the raw values are sent out, making it possible to do pressure sensing and even some limited multi-touch sensing.

 

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We're happy to introduce a new product, the 16X PWM LED Fader. It lets you control up to 16 channels of high resolution pwm voltage for LEDs or Speed controlled DC motors. It also has a bunch of built in command shortcuts for grouping lights, and making chase and fading sequences.

Features:

• 16 channels of voltage control--mix DC motors and LEDs
• High resolution 16bit* control enables smooth fading, precise color mixing
• Different voltages can be used on all 16 channels (4 separate banks for simplied wiring)
• Control via RS232 serial, 5V TTL serial or high speed SPI from arduino or other uCs
• Fast update / communication--with SPI, all 16 channels can be smoothly swept
• Easy built-in commands: Group lights, Fade, Chase, Blink , Sunspot
• Up to 25V and 2A per channel (max power dependent on ambient temperature)

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We're having a 10% off sale on our ChipQuik inventory. Use code savequik in the checkout to get 10% off any Chipquik products, including:
Lead Free Solder Paste
Flux Paste
Original SMD Removal Alloy




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The Voice of Saturn (VOS) VC Filter is now available in Euro-Rack format exclusively from a n a l o g u e h a v e n.

The VoS Voltage Controlled Filter is based around a CEM3372 filter IC (4-pole resonant low-pass filter)--the same chips found in the filters of such analog classics as the Sequential Circuits Prophet 600, Prophet T8 and Oberheim Xpander. One very cool feature of the CEM series filter chips is that as the resonance is turned up, the volume level does not drop as dramatically (as it does in other analaogs, including the famous Moog Ladder Filter).

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The Scanalog 2 is a great inexpensive tool for hobbyists looking to debug digital issues, especially if they can't afford an oscilloscope.  Debug SPI, I2C, Serial UART, 1-Wire, Maple Bus (more to come with software updates). You can even inspect that PWM or RC servo signal to make sure your arduino is outputting what you think it should.

Features:

• 20Msps on 4 channels
• 1.8V - 5V level detection
• 256k samples of storage on each line
• Playback on all 4 lines, or just 2 while reading from other 2

Wishlist:

• Better Triggering
• More flexible output--static pwm to control RC servos, for instance, or just for a clock generator.

 

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 Here's a quick video of drag soldering--a technique that enables you to quickly solder entire sides of ICs by simply dragging the iron across all the pins.  The key is starting with the right amount of solder, and adding generous flux.  The results are often better and more uniform than individual pin soldering. 

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A common mistake we've seen in our classes--as well as from experienced 'solderers'--is to clean the tip before putting the iron back in its stand.  This habit leaves the tip exposed to oxygen in the air which works quickly to oxidize (basically rusting) the end of the tip.  Almost all metals oxidize in air, and they do so much faster at higher temperatures.  When your tip is thoroughly oxidized, it will look burnt, and no solder will stick to it. And if solder won't stick to it, you won't be able to create a "heat bridge" of solder between the iron and part, and very little heat will transfer.

To avoid this, coat the tip with a large blob of solder every time before returning it to its stand.  While flux in the solder gradually eats away at the tip, oxidation will cause problems much faster. 

You may notice that new tips actually come coated with solder. We've seen manufacturer documentation recommending that you hold solder against a new tip the first time you heat it up so that the tip gets coated as soon as it's hot enough to melt solder.

Cleaning tip: If your tip is starting to look brown, and won't 'hold' solder, or the solder acts like water on a freshly waxed car, you can help restore it by repeatedly applying solder and wiping it off.  The flux in the solder acts like a cleaning against against the built up oxides.  It may take 20 or more cycles of this to get the tip back into shape.

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Here's an instructable showing how to Control a Hand Drill with an Arduino / roboduino to spool solder. This may not be on the top of everyone's project list, but a hand drill is strong enough to do a lot of tasks, so we hope this will be helpful to someone with another project idea,... maybe spooling guitar pickups.

Rather than use TRIACs to mess with the 120VAC, we found a servo was an easy and safe way to control the drill's trigger / throttle.  The setup also uses a home made optical encoder that triggers an interrupt in the arduino code.  The code is available here, and contains some useful bits like lookup-table speed control, state machine menu system, and interrupt based speed sensing.

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While SMT leds typically have a dot or small green line indicating their cathode, it can be hard to remember.  A quick way to test a LED is by touching the ends with a multimeter in 'Continuity Test' mode.  The multimeter generates a small voltage in order to detect a closed circuit, and this is enough to light the LED.  Although we couldn't burn out any LEDs with this Fluke, there's no guarantee your meter won't over-do the current, so we recommend doing just a quick touch, or putting a resistor in line.

 

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Inspired by Steve Chamberlin's post evaluating kicad vs eagle for someone new to both, here are some more opinions from the perspective of someone who uses both equally, (about 20 projects for both), but is certainly not an expert at either.

Summary: Eagle is more straightforward, has better library support of out of the box, and better community support (ladyada, sparkfun, etc.).

Kicad is free, and is maybe 1 or 2 revisions from being great.

Click the entry for our list of pros and cons:

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We program boot loaders on a decent number of ATMEGAs for our roboduino kit, which involves a lot of pin bending and IC pulling. To speed up the process, Oren transformed this arduino into a program-o-duino by soldering on a ZIF(Zero Insertion Force) socket.  Now it just takes a quick pull of the lever to pop the chip in and out.

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A demo showing off more of the capabilities of the Voice of Saturn Sequencer

 

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