LEAP#296 Solar Pendulum on a Boldport QSOP Breakout
I had a spare BoldPort QSOP Breakout board and for a while had been pondering some interesting use for it. I think I finally found one … a solar pendulum! I discovered some new and creative solar wobble/flip-flap toys while travelling recently, which started me wondering how they work. Design details are scant, much hidden behind patent walls. The trick appears to be in the switching of capacitor-backed pulses through a coil. What is quite impressive is how well they work with only modest internal lighting and very small photovoltaic cells. The final approach I used was inspired by a Nuts & Volts article As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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LEAP#295 Frequency Counter Kit
Not that I really need another frequency counter, but it is interesting to see how this one is constructed.
Julian Ilett has a video on a similar kit and his investigation of the circuit was thorough,
including the discovery that the kits available are deritative from original work by Wolfgang “Wolf” Büscher, DL4YHF
(see Frequency counter with a PIC and minimum hardware).
As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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LEAP#294 CD4060 Crystal Oscillator
The CD4060 datasheet describes a crystal oscillator configuration for self-driving the ripple counter.
Using a crystal provides very precise (but fixed) frequency control.
As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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LEAP#293 CD4060 RC Oscillator
The CD4060 datasheet describes an RC oscillator configuration for self-driving the ripple counter with a 50% duty cycle.
This is pretty handy, and is used for example in circuits that need a self-running binary counter or frequency divider.
As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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