Guide For Working With AVR Microcontrollers

March 14, 2011 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

[Q] wrote in to let us know about the AVR-Guide he’s been working on. It looks like he’s finished posting about 80% of the content he planned for in his initial draft outline. We read through several of the sections and found them to be concise, yet able to present information in a way that’s easy to grasp. The screenshot above shows the most basic block of information to get started with AVR microcontrollers. We’ve covered the same information in our AVR tutorial series and think that reading through both will give you a strong understanding of the knowledge needed to work with 8-bit microcontrollers with confidence. But this resource doesn’t stop after the basics. If you’re looking to bolster your knowledge of all the features the AVR line has to offer there’s also sections explaining Digital I/O, Interrupts, Timers, Analog I/O, Communications, and Miscellaneous topics.

The site is called QEEWiki. We logged in using a Google account (this is hosted as a Google site) but didn’t see a way to edit the information. If this truly is a Wiki and you know how to edit pages please leave a comment about it after the break.

Micro Audio Player Can Hide Behind A Postage Stamp

March 5, 2011 by Mike Nathan 28 Comments

The original iPod shuffle was a pretty small device, there’s no doubt about that. However, in the world of miniature audio players, [Chan] is no slouch either.

A few years ago, he set out to construct a micro audio player that used little more than a small microcontroller and a microSD memory card. He chose an ATinyX5 series microcontroller to run the show, utilizing its pair of PWM output pins to directly drive the speakers. Since there is no built-in amplifier, the audio volume is not loud, but it does sound reasonable if you use a set of high efficiency desktop speakers. He does mention that the sound can easily be amplified after passing the signal through a filter, so there is hope for those of you who like your music turned up to 11.

The only downside we can see is that the audio player can only process Wave files, but it’s hard to expect more from a DIY audio player smaller than a postage stamp. It would be great to see what sort of micro-handiwork [Chan] could perform if he were to update his design and build a full-functioning MP3 player based upon this project.

A VFD Clock That Tells The Time, Then Tells You To **** Off

February 25, 2011 by Mike Nathan 12 Comments

Clocks are relatively simple devices – they tell time, and most often sport a handful of other utilitarian features like alarms and radios. Rarely though, do you see a clock that will wake you up in the morning and also curse at you shortly thereafter. [Matt Evans] clearly thought that clocks need to pack a little more attitude, so he built his girlfriend a clock that not only tells time, but spouts off nasty phrases as well. What a lucky gal!

The clock was constructed using IV-17 VFD tubes, each bearing 16 light-able segments. It seemed wasteful to simply use the tubes to tell time, so [Matt] got busy adding other features to the clock. It has an alarm, a calendar that is always stuck on his girlfriend’s birthday, and an ambient light sensor to dim the tubes at night. It also sports a variable rudeness setting, allowing for mild insults when family members are present, and extremely foul language for when your frat brothers swing by.

He has plenty of pictures on his site, but we’re betting people will want to see schematics and some source code. After all, Mother’s Day is but a few months away!

Xprotolab: Oscilloscope And Xmega Development Board

February 17, 2011 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

Here’s a nice hands-on overview of the Xprotolab, a development board based around the AVR ATxmega32A4 microcontroller. The tiny DIP package includes an OLED display, four tactile switches, and it can be powered via a micro USB connector. The device ships ready to use as a two-channel Oscilloscope, but check out how small it is in the video after the break to decide if this will actually be useful for you. It’s not that it doesn’t have a lot of features, in fact it’s packed with them, but that screen is quite small for meaningful work. Still, at $35 it’s an inexpensive way to get your hands on the hardware and acquaint yourself with this line of microprocessors. Not that in order to flash new firmware you will need a PDI capable programmer. Continue reading “Xprotolab: Oscilloscope And Xmega Development Board” →

Replace An N64’s Worn Out Joystick

February 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

As gaming consoles age the controllers will inevitably show some wear, and sadly may give out all together. [Kyle] couldn’t bear to watch his Nintendo 64 controller bite the dust so he replaced the thumb stick with one from a PlayStation. This is a bigger job than you might imagine because the two parts are fundamentally different. The original N64 stick uses a rotary encoder to output data to the control chip, while the PlayStation stick is an analog device. [Kyle’s] solution was to read the analog values using a PIC, but lower in the thread you can read about another user who pulled off a similar hack using an AVR. Both convert the signals into the rotary encoder format that the N64 chip is listening for. From the looks of the clip embedded after the break, this couldn’t work any better!

Continue reading “Replace An N64’s Worn Out Joystick” →

USB Controller For Multiple Servos

February 4, 2011 by Mike Nathan 12 Comments

USB_controller_for_6_servos

[dunk] constructed an easy to use AVR-based USB controller with the ability to drive up to six R/C hobby servos at once. While the USB-powered Atmega8 he used supplies the necessary PWM signaling for all of the servos, an external power supply rated up to 30v at 3A is necessary to provide the 5v of power each servo requires. His project is an extension of the USB servo controller built by [Ronald Schaten] and includes several significant upgrades. The addition of 5 more servos aside, [dunk] switched to AVRlib routines for multi-servo control and PWM management, as well as added the aforementioned power supply to prevent an excessive current draw on the USB port. His tutorial includes a complete parts list, Eagle PCB schematic, the required USB servo source code, as well as a sampling of commands that can be issued to the servo controller.

STK200 Pocket Change Programmer

February 3, 2011 by Jake W 48 Comments

A common complaints of beginners to microcontroller programming is the availability of DIY tools that do not require a parallel port. Using not much more than a couple of 74xx series chips and some protoboard, [Rue] was able to create an AVR programmer for less than the cost of some chips it can program – giving parallel programmers a run for thier money. [Rue] used Linux treat the ubiquitous PATA/IDE port as a parallel port. By having avrdude treat the programmer as an Atmel STK200, [Rue] was able to upload a blinky program to his AVR microcontroller through ISP. If anybody can think of an even lower cost unconventional solution give us a shout.