x0xb0x Acid Cat

Starring x0xb0x #601 and Acid Cat

kthxbi!

Filed under: random,x0xb0x — by ladyada, posted August 30, 2007 at 11:08 pm

OHARARP’s USB POV kit

Ryan of OHARARP, LLC is making a cool SMT practice kit, a persistence of vision toy!

Cool stuff: bright blue LEDs, boost converter means it runs on a single AA battery, USB connectivity to a PIC, comes with a stencil, solder paste, and wick.


Check it out here.

Filed under: kits,minipov — by ladyada, posted at 8:02 pm

iPhone + Mintyboost test

I borrowed my friend’s iPhone and did a test, the mintyboost works!

Edit: Seems like I was just lucky and in general its -not- working for people ??? Must investigate!

Filed under: mintyboost — by ladyada, posted August 28, 2007 at 4:46 pm

First sketch: Arduino beta tester

I installed Arduino IDE 009 since I figured I should learn this stuff if I’m going to sell Arduino’s (and clones)

My project today was to build a simple NPN Hfe (Beta) meter to do some tests on the now ultra-rare 2sc2291 matched pairs. My multimeter has one but I wanted to make sure I was testing with the same setup as the one in the datasheet, with a Vce of about 6V and Ic = 1mA. The results are in the x0xd0x wiki

This is the breadboard circuit I used:

its similar to the one described on the x0xb0x page, but with the op amp swapped around for NPN’s

The sketch is rather small, I just take the two analog measurements, do a bit of math and spit out the calculated beta. I checked this against my meter and it matched up for lower betas (although not for higher ones, which may mean I’ve got current leaking into the opamp)

Filed under: arduino,EE,x0xb0x — by ladyada, posted August 15, 2007 at 10:48 pm

Idea: solderless breadboard Arduino clone

I’ve been playing around with alternative layouts to the popular Arduino project. Here is one I got in my recent batch of PCBs. It comes as a kit, to be assembled by the customer.

It has basically the same parts as the original: an ATmega168 and 16MHz crystal, 9V DC jack, 5V power supply, power LED, a red LED connected to pin 13, a programming header and a reset button.

But, it doesn’t have a USB jack, as the chip is really tough to solder. Instead you can use a USB-ttl cable (available from Mouser) or a USBmini type thing:

The nice thing about it is that you can plug it into a $3 solderless breadboard and it will be about $20 for a kit. The sad part is you can’t use shields and a separate USB connection.

It will be interesting to see whether the new layout will be useful to people!

Filed under: arduino,kits,projects — by ladyada, posted August 14, 2007 at 1:16 am

Multimeter Tutorial, Part 2: Resistance!

Get your ohmmeters out, kids. It’s time for part 2 of how to use a multimeter, this time for all of your resistor-measuring needs.

You will Learn:

  • How to measure resistors (duh)
  • The difference between auto-ranging and ranged meters and what to watch out for
  • How to characterize and test potentiometers and certain sensors.

I also attempt to uncover the reason why all meter ranges start with the number 2.

Click here to read the tutorial!

There’s lots of video clips, many of which are extremely boring compared to YouTube. Like check this one out of me shading an LDR

I strongly recommend adding it to your myspace!@

Filed under: EE,site updates — by ladyada, posted August 9, 2007 at 1:17 am

New in the store: Arduino Decimila!

After weeks and weeks of waiting, I got a box of Arduinos! To celebrate I put them on sale, only $33.25 each! Hopefully I can keep them in stock…Check ‘em out here

Filed under: announce,arduino — by ladyada, posted August 7, 2007 at 11:43 pm

Presents for me!!!

Since it seemed to be the hip thing to do, I ordered a set of prototype PCBs from Gold Phoenix. The quality is very nice (although I did pay for electrical test) and the turn around was speedy.

One of the projects I got back was Mystery Kit! Can you guess what Mystery Kit is? Shouldn’t be too hard…

Filed under: EE,kits,projects — by ladyada, posted at 1:22 pm

Multimeter tutorial part 1 – Continuity

Get to know your meter better, with a quick lesson on continuity!

Here’s a video from the page, cause I like embedding videos. I call this one BEEEEEP. I’m thinking of making it into a facebook plug-in!

Filed under: EE — by ladyada, posted August 3, 2007 at 11:49 pm

Adafruit & DIGG raise $500 for the EFF!

We sold out of our first run of 500 Digg Button kits and here’s the check that’s going in the mail!

Thanks to Phil Torrone, Kevin Rose & everyone who contributed $1 by purchasing a kit!


Filed under: kits — by ladyada, posted August 2, 2007 at 8:00 pm

PCB Cost Calculator

If you design and hack electronics for fun or work, then you know that PCB costs can be a big part of your budget. There’s a lot of manufacturers there, and they all use different pricing schemes.
Argh! So hard to compare!
So I wrote a javascript PCB cost calculator. Just punch in your PCB size and the minimum number you need and it’ll give you an idea of how much it will cost to make (shipping is approximated)

See the screenshot below, then go and visit the Real Deal

screenshot

Filed under: EE,site updates — by ladyada, posted at 5:17 pm

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