Electronic Projects and DIY Solutions

Development Board: Dedicated 8 Channel Servo Controller

Details: Published: Sunday, 14 February 2010; Written by Graham Mitchell

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Download the Swordfish program and Gerber files here: Dedicated Servo Controller Source Files

This project offers a dedicated solution to control servo motors, which can be controlled via USART data packets. This approach has it advantages, though Andy has made an excellent feature enriched Servo Library which can be used in pretty much any program.

Servo Motor's are one of the many hobby electronic marvels that make life a lot easier when working with motion/kinetic applications. They are somewhat precision instruments that offer their full range of motion with pulse widths usually between 1mS and 2mS. That's not much play, and further more, the positional information must be transmitted to the servo approximately fifty times a second (50Hz).

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Sure 2.4 GHz UART Module

Details: Published: Friday, 12 February 2010; Written by Jon Chandler

I've recently had a few applications where a wireless link would be handy. Looking on eBay, I found that Sure makes a 2.4 GHz UART module for a decent price (US$14 each on eBay including shipping). These are designed as a cable replacement, with a claimed range of 10 meters.

Projected Date (calculates the date in X days time)

Details: Published: Sunday, 31 January 2010; Written by Graham Mitchell

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OK, so this project might not be a killer robot or auto-guided missile, though for what ever reason it has turned out to be a decently sized program! The scenario that brought this project to life would most likely be quite unique and rarely encountered, though I thought it would still be worth sharing as the program has a few handy little features and nifty tricks.

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Feature Lighting - Entertainment Unit

Details: Published: Sunday, 20 December 2009; Written by Graham Mitchell

LED Boards

I recently brought a few components from Sure Electronics which included aluminium based LED boards. They caught my eye given the cheap price, US$2.04 (at the time of writing this article) and come completely assembled ready to be connected to 12-13.8V. Here's what they look like;

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Programming a New Development Board

Details: Published: Thursday, 12 November 2009; Written by Jon Chandler

When starting a new project on either a development board or a board of my own design, rather than trying to do everything in one huge programming effort, I break the project down into small pieces and work towards the end goal in small sections. This process really saves on frustration and makes troubleshooting easier when problems occur.

I'll use the Sure Electronics PICDEM+ board as an example for the following discussion. It's got a PIC18F4520 and number of devices installed including an LCD display, a 4 digit, seven-segment LED display, an I2C EEPROM (24C02) and temperature chip (LM75), a buzzer and some LEDs and switches. Some of these devices share port pins, so you can't use everything at once, but it's a good platform for development. It's also got an ICSP connector (location) and a USB interface via a CP2102 USB - UART bridge. Sure Electronics sells mainly on ebay, with a very good reputation.

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