[James Bellafaire] wanted a good looking old radio with a modern sound. Granted, you could hollow the case out and replace it with an iPod. Or you could convert the thing to an Internet radio. But where’s the fun in that?
[James] took a different approach. Part woodworking project, part Raspberry Pi project, and part microcontroller project, he wound up with a hard drive-based music player in a 1930’s case with knobs that control the playback.
You will probably be familiar with I²C, a serial bus typically used for not-very-fast communication with microcontroller peripherals. It’s likely though that unless you are an I²C wizard you won’t be intimately familiar with the intricacies of its operation, and each new device will bring a lengthy spell of studying data sheets and head-scratching.
If the previous paragraph describes you, read on. [Clint Stevenson] wrote a library for interfacing I²C EEPROMs to Arduino platforms, and when a user found a bug when using it on an ATtiny85, he wrote up his solution. The resulting piece is a clear explanation of how I²C EEPROMs talk to the bus, the various operations you can perform on them, and the overhead each places on the bus. He then goes on to explain EEPROM timing, and how since it takes the device a while to perform each task, the microcontroller must be sure it has completed before moving to the next one.
In the case of [Clint]’s library, the problem turned out to be a minor incompatibility with the Arduino Wire library over handling I²C start conditions. I²C has a clock and a data line, both of which are high when no tasks are being performed. A start condition indicates to the devices on the bus that something is about to happen, and is indicated by the data line going low while the clock line stays high for a while before the clock line starts up and the data line carries the I²C command. He’s posted samples of code on the page linked above, and you can find his library in his GitHub repository.
If you want to know more about I²C, take a look at Hackaday Editor [Elliot Williams’] masterclasses on the subject: What could go wrong, I²C edition, and Embed With Elliot, I²C bus scanning.
Serial EEPROM die picture, By Epop (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
[Scott Harden] is working on a research project involving optogenetics. From what we were able to piece together optogenetics is like this: someone genetically modifies a mouse to have cell behaviors which can activated by light sensitive proteins. The mice then have a frikin’ lasers mounted on their heads, but pointing inwards towards their brains not out towards Mr. Bond’s.
Naturally, to make any guesses about the resulting output behavior from the mouse the input light has to be very controlled and exact. [Scott] had a laser and he had a driver, but he didn’t have a controller to fire the pulses. To make things more difficult, the research was already underway and the controller had to be built
The expensive laser driver had a bizarre output of maybe positive 28 volts or, perhaps, negative 28 volts… at eight amps. It was an industry standard in a very small industry. He didn’t have a really good way to measure or verify this without either destroying his measuring equipment or the laser driver. So he decided to just build a voltage-agnostic input on his controller. As a bonus the opto-isolated input would protect the expensive controller.
![The kind of travesty that can occur when [Stefan Kiese] doesn't have access to nice project boxes.](https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/img_3466.jpg)
He packaged everything in a nice project box. He keeps them on hand to prevent him from building circuits on whatever he can find. Adding some tricks from the ham-radio hobby made the box look very professional. He was pleased and surprised to find that the box worked on his first try.
Get ready to rumble! [Thierry] made the exact same Hello-World-esque project with two microcontrollers (that are now technically produced by the same firm!) to see how the experience went.
It’s not just an LED-blinker, though. He added in a light-detection function so that it only switches on at night. It uses the Forest Mims trick of reverse-biasing the LED and waiting for it to discharge its internal capacitance. The point is, however, that it gives the chip something to do instead of simply sleeping.
Although he’s an AVR user by habit, [Thierry] finds in favor of the PIC because it’s got a lower power draw both when idling and when awake and doing some computation. This is largely because the PIC has an onboard low-power oscillator that lets it limp along at 32 kHz, but also because the chip has a lower power consumption in general. In the end, it’s probably a 10% advantage to the PIC on power.
If you’re competent with one of the two chips, but not the other, his two versions of the same code would be a great way to start familiarizing yourself with the other. We really like his isDarkerThan() function which makes extensive use of sleep modes on both chips during the LED’s discharge period. And honestly, at this level the code for the two is more similar than different.
(Oh, and did you notice [Thierry]’s use of a paper clip as a coin-cell holder? It’s a hack!)
Surprisingly, we’ve managed to avoid taking a stray bullet from the crossfire that occasionally breaks out between the PIC and AVR fans. We have covered a “shootout” before, and PIC won that round too, although it was similarly close. Will the Microchip purchase of Atmel calm the flames? Let’s find out in the comment section. We have our popcorn ready!
[ANTALIFE] is going to tie the knot sometime in 2017. Instead of sending out paper announcements or just updating his Facebook status, he wanted to give their family members something lasting and memorable, like a small trinket with a pair of light-up cats.
This project is pretty simple in theory. A pair of RGB LEDs cycle through the colors of the rainbow with the help of an ATtiny25 and resistors carefully chosen for each LED. But there are several challenges at play here. [ANTALIFE] wanted to design something quite small that would last at least a day on a single CR2032 coin cell. This project was his first foray into SMD/SMT design and construction. We think that this warrants its own congratulations, especially since it looks as though he made at least a dozen of these things.
[ANTALIFE] made things much easier for himself with the purchase of a cheap hot air rework station and used a chip clip to program the ‘tiny. The cats are a design from Thingiverse, which he modified to turn them into bride and groom. Watch a whole line of them glow after the break. We sincerely hope that a larger version of these cats end up on top of the wedding cake.
For anyone with an undying love blinkenlights and impending nuptials, don’t forget the light-up invitations, wedding attire, and centerpieces.
MIDI was created over thirty years ago to connect electronic instruments, synths, sequencers, and computers together. Of course, this means MIDI was meant to be used with computers that are now thirty years old, and now even the tiniest microcontrollers have enough processing power to take a MIDI signal and create digital audio. [mitxela]’s polyphonic synth for the ATtiny 2313 does just that, using only two kilobytes of Flash and fitting inside a MIDI jack.
Putting a MIDI synth into a MIDI plug is something we’ve seen a few times before. In fact, [mitxela] did the same thing a few months ago with an ATtiny85, and [Jan Ostman]’s DSP-G1 does the same thing with a tiny ARM chip. Building one of these with an ATtiny2313 is really pushing the envelope, though. With only 2 kB of Flash memory and 128 bytes of RAM, there’s not a lot of space in this chip. Making a polyphonic synth plug is even harder.
The circuit for [mitxela]’s chip is extremely simple, with power and MIDI data provided by a MIDI keyboard, a 20 MHz crystal, and audio output provided eight digital pins summed with a bunch of resistors. Yes, this is only a square wave synth, and the polyphony is limited to eight channels. It works, as the video below spells out.
Is it a good synth? No, not really. By [mitxela]’s own assertion, it’s not a practical solution to anything, the dead bug construction takes an hour to put together, and the synth itself is limited to square waves with some ugly quantization, at that. It is a neat exercise in developing unique audio devices and especially hackey, making it a very cool build. And it doesn’t sound half bad.
The GameCube controller is a favorite among the console enthusiasts new and old, and with Nintendo’s recent release of the Smash Bros. edition of this controller, this is a controller that has been in production for a very, very long time. [Garrett] likes using the GameCube controller on his PC, but this requires either a bulky USB adapter, or an off-brand GameCube ‘style’ controller that leaves something to be desired. Instead of compromising, [Garrett] turned his GameCube controller into a native USB device with a custom PCB and a bit of programming.
First, the hardware. [Garrett] turned to the ATtiny84. This chip is the big brother of the ubiquitous 8-pin ATtiny85. The design of the circuit board is just under a square inch and includes connections for the USB differential pairs, 5V, signal, and ground coming from the controller board.
The software stack includes the micronucleus bootloader for USB firmware updates and V-USB to handle the USB protocol. There are even a few additions inspired by [Garrett]’s earlier shinewave controller mod. This controller mod turns the GameCube controller into a glowing hot mess certain to distract your competitors while playing Super Smash Bros. It’s a great mod, and since [Garrett] kept the board easily solderable, it’s something that can be easily retrofitted into any GameCube controller.
