my recent reads..

LEAP#334 Exercising the MCP2200 USB-UART transceiver

The MCP2200 is a USB-to-UART serial converter device. It is getting a bit on the old side, only supporting USB 2.0, and all the software support provided is Windows-only. Nevertheless, I got hold of the MCP2200 Breakout Module to find out more. I was particularly intersted to see how far I could get under MacOSX, including configuration over the HID Interface. The answer is pleasantly: all the way! As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub hero_image


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LEAP#333 Measure Thy Own Voltage

One of the issues with analogue measurements on the Arduino is that typically we assume an accurate 5V reference, and need to add fudge factors for a calibrated reading. Well, I borrowed some code and re-read the ADC part of the datasheet again, and there is a neat little trick for using the 1.1V internal voltage reference to measure (thus calibrate) the supply voltage. It works, but not without caveats - so although QI, I’m afraid the net result may not be much of an improvement! As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub hero_image


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LEAP#332 RC Phase Shift Oscillator

Three RC high-pass filter poles add more than 180˚ phase shift on top of the 180˚ contributed by a class A BJT inverting amplifier with enough gain to sustain positive feeback. And that’s all you need to make an oscillator. As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub hero_image


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LEAP#331 Getting Blinky with PIC Assembler

Not necessarily everyone’s first choice for embedded development these days, PIC is perhaps now more a right-of-passage! It was Julian Ilett who finally inspired me to try this myself. One thing that held me back was the perception that you have to “downgrade” to Windows in order to get anything going. Challenge accepted, and I quickly learned that the MPLAB X IDE is just perfect and makes PIC development on MacOSX a piece of cake. So let’s get blinky.. As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub


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