How to Arduino - a video toolbox
Lonnie Honeycutt is kicking off a practical Arduino video series aimed at hobbyists who want the fastest, simplest way to get things working. The first few lessons cover the Arduino IDE, breadboards, a 16x2 LCD, servos, potentiometers, and analogRead. He also shares a behind-the-scenes look at his multi-camera filming setup and how it helps him focus on the project instead of the shot.
Introduction to Microcontrollers - Button Matrix & Auto Repeating
Wiring every button to its own GPIO gets expensive fast, so Mike Silva shows how to read a 4x4 keypad with only eight pins using matrix scanning. He then builds the raw scan into a debounced state machine, adds auto-repeat, and even extends it to a two-stage repeat rate. The result is a practical, code-heavy walkthrough for turning a keypad into clean button events on AVR and STM32.
Levitating Globe Teardown, Part 2
Tim Wescott opens up a budget levitating globe and shows why it seems magical: a massive 30 mm rare-earth magnet and a deliberately cheap magnetic circuit. He documents a bolt used as the flux core, a likely microcontroller and hall sensor in the head, very fine winding in the electromagnet, and a single-transistor unidirectional drive. Part 3 will measure forces and sensor voltages to build a better controller.
Arduino robotics #4 - HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor
Lonnie Honeycutt shows how to turn a $50 mobile platform into a simple autonomous robot by adding an HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor to an Arduino. The post walks through wiring, a minimal test sketch and the integration code used on Clusterbot, plus practical tips on range limits, motor choices and library options to make obstacle avoidance reliable for hobby builds.
Introduction to Microcontrollers - Adding Some Real-World Hardware
Two blinking LEDs only teach you so much, so Mike designed a docking board that adds a 4x20 HD44780 LCD, a 4x4 button matrix, four LEDs, DIP switches and an ADC potentiometer for AVR and STM32 experiments. This post shows how to wire and drive the HD44780 in 4-bit mode, calibrate microsecond and millisecond software delays, use the busy flag to speed writes, and includes AVR example code to get the display running.
MSP430 LaunchPad Tutorial - Part 3 - ADC
Enrico Garante walks through practical ADC use on the MSP430G2231, from a single-channel read that toggles LaunchPad LEDs to multi-channel repeated conversions. The post includes complete code, an ADC10 interrupt example to wake from low-power mode, and a DTC-backed array transfer so you can collect samples without polling. A short CCS debugging tip shows how to watch ADC variables while running.
Isolated Sigma-Delta Modulators, Rah Rah Rah!
Analog isolation can blow up DAQ budgets, but isolated sigma-delta modulators let you send a single 1-bit stream and a clock across the barrier, keeping costs down. Jason walks through Avago, TI, and Analog Devices parts, explains sigma-delta noise shaping in plain terms, and calls out the real engineering work: converting a 10–20 MHz bitstream into usable samples with sinc/CIC decimators or FPGA filtering.
A Working Real Time Clock (RTC) Implementation
When the GPRS modem would not provide network time, Dr Cagri Tanriover implemented a compact hardware real time clock using the NXP PCF8523T. The post highlights why automatic backup switching, I2C integration, BCD register handling, and alarm/timer features matter for embedded timestamps. It also shows battery-life math with a CR1225 and offers practical build notes after an initial ESD-related failure.
LCD Control with an MCU
Dr Cagri Tanriover set out to add a cheap 2x16 JHD162A LCD to an MCU project and ran into surprisingly opaque datasheets and quirky behavior. This post walks through the wiring, a reliable initialization sequence, contrast troubleshooting, and practical scrolling and CGRAM tips that saved debugging time. Read it for hands-on fixes and gotchas that datasheets often omit.
A Useful Current Profiling Method
Dr Cagri Tanriover shares a practical, low-cost way to capture millisecond-scale current profiles when you do not have a DSO. The method uses a 0.3 ohm shunt, an LM324 amplifier with roughly 11x gain, and a microcontroller ADC to log 10-bit samples at 20 kHz, giving sub-millisecond timing and about 1.15 mA sensitivity for embedded radio measurements.
A Working Real Time Clock (RTC) Implementation
When the GPRS modem would not provide network time, Dr Cagri Tanriover implemented a compact hardware real time clock using the NXP PCF8523T. The post highlights why automatic backup switching, I2C integration, BCD register handling, and alarm/timer features matter for embedded timestamps. It also shows battery-life math with a CR1225 and offers practical build notes after an initial ESD-related failure.
Handling latency in data acquisition systems
In recent projects, I found myself working with data acquisition systems. For instance: PCIe/10GbE readouts for 2D XRay detectors (RASHPA slides, RASHPA paper) instruments mixing 1D signal acquisition and triggering, microcontroller based system for audio transmission: (NRF spearker)
Real-time clocks: Does anybody really know what time it is?
Most RTC chips still expose calendar fields rather than seconds-since-epoch, forcing embedded engineers to write ugly conversion code. Jason Sachs makes the case for offset encoding, subseconds, and an explicit snapshot feature to simplify interval math, raise precision, and avoid rare timing bugs. Read this practical take on RTC trade-offs and a short wishlist for chip makers.
A Useful Current Profiling Method
Dr Cagri Tanriover shares a practical, low-cost way to capture millisecond-scale current profiles when you do not have a DSO. The method uses a 0.3 ohm shunt, an LM324 amplifier with roughly 11x gain, and a microcontroller ADC to log 10-bit samples at 20 kHz, giving sub-millisecond timing and about 1.15 mA sensitivity for embedded radio measurements.
Basic Sensors for an Autonomous Vehicle
A compact primer on inexpensive sensors you can use to help a small autonomous vehicle sense its surroundings. The post walks through line follower modules, several switch types for bumpers, ultrasonic PING sensors and passive infrared units, with practical notes on mounting and common pitfalls like reversed pins and unreliable returns on rough surfaces.
Introducing The VolksEEG Project
VolksEEG is an open-source effort to build an FDA-cleared clinical EEG and publish every design so others can manufacture it. The volunteer-driven project centers on the TI ADS1299 8-channel, 24-bit biopotential ADC and combines medical and electrical engineering expertise to confront regulatory, safety, and usability challenges. This blog series will document technical decisions, isolation and safety concerns, and ways engineers can contribute.
Motion Sensor with Raspberry Pi and MPU6050 - Part 1
This blog will help you build your own, low cost 3-axis motion sensor using Raspberry Pi and Invensense MPU6050.
Isolated Sigma-Delta Modulators, Rah Rah Rah!
Analog isolation can blow up DAQ budgets, but isolated sigma-delta modulators let you send a single 1-bit stream and a clock across the barrier, keeping costs down. Jason walks through Avago, TI, and Analog Devices parts, explains sigma-delta noise shaping in plain terms, and calls out the real engineering work: converting a 10–20 MHz bitstream into usable samples with sinc/CIC decimators or FPGA filtering.
Designing IoT Wireless Sensor Nodes
Mahesh Balan outlines practical strategies for building tiny IoT wireless sensor nodes that run on harvested energy. The post explains using small solar cells with coin-cell or supercapacitor buffering, pairing sensors with Bluetooth Low Energy for short-range telemetry, and choosing PMICs with ultra-low quiescent and startup power. A Cypress PMIC example shows operation can be sustained under low-brightness conditions near 100 lx.
Quaternions and the spatial rotations in motion enabled wearable devices. Exploiting the potential of smart IMUs attitude estimation.
Have you always wondered what a quaternion is? this is your post. Attitude or spatial orientation analysis is a powerful element in wearable devices (and many other systems). Commercially available sensors can provide this information out-of-the-box without requiring complex additional implementation of sensor fusion algorithms. Since these are already on-chip solutions devices can serve as a way to explore and analyze motion in several use cases. Mathematical analysis for processing quaternion is presented along with a brief introduction to them, Although they are not really easy to visualise, a couple fairly simple examples are provided which may allow you to gain some intuition on what's the logic behind them.
Basic Sensors for an Autonomous Vehicle
A compact primer on inexpensive sensors you can use to help a small autonomous vehicle sense its surroundings. The post walks through line follower modules, several switch types for bumpers, ultrasonic PING sensors and passive infrared units, with practical notes on mounting and common pitfalls like reversed pins and unreliable returns on rough surfaces.
A Useful Current Profiling Method
Dr Cagri Tanriover shares a practical, low-cost way to capture millisecond-scale current profiles when you do not have a DSO. The method uses a 0.3 ohm shunt, an LM324 amplifier with roughly 11x gain, and a microcontroller ADC to log 10-bit samples at 20 kHz, giving sub-millisecond timing and about 1.15 mA sensitivity for embedded radio measurements.
STM32 B-CAMS-OMV Walkthrough
Want to prototype embedded vision quickly? This walkthrough shows how the STM32 B-CAMS-OMV camera module pairs with the STM32H747I-DISCO discovery kit and the FP-AI-VISION1 function pack to get you running in minutes. The video covers the camera connection interface, key software functions to control and process data, and the ISP features that let image processing run inside the camera. The STM32 H7 project with B-CAMS-OMV drivers is available on GitHub.
Motion Sensor with Raspberry Pi and MPU6050 - Part 1
This blog will help you build your own, low cost 3-axis motion sensor using Raspberry Pi and Invensense MPU6050.
Basler pylon on Raspberry Pi with Yocto
Basler's pylon can be packaged into a minimal Raspberry Pi Yocto image in a few clear steps. This walkthrough shows how to clone poky with meta-openembedded, meta-raspberrypi and Basler's meta-basler-tools, tweak conf/local.conf to add OpenCV and accept the Basler EULA, build rpi-test-image and generate an SDK for cross-compilation. It finishes by cross-compiling a pylon_example binary, copying it to the Pi and testing with a Basler acA2440-20gm.
Interfacing with Electrochemical Gas Sensors
Stephane Boucher lays out practical rules for connecting electrochemical gas sensors to amplifiers and mixed-signal MCUs. He explains the potentiostat and transimpedance amplifier topology, why the reference electrode must see sub-nanoamp currents, and how GPIO structures in devices like the PSoC 4 can introduce leakage. The post shows how choosing supply and reference voltages yields a near-zero input-current operating point for reliable sensing.
LCD Control with an MCU
Dr Cagri Tanriover set out to add a cheap 2x16 JHD162A LCD to an MCU project and ran into surprisingly opaque datasheets and quirky behavior. This post walks through the wiring, a reliable initialization sequence, contrast troubleshooting, and practical scrolling and CGRAM tips that saved debugging time. Read it for hands-on fixes and gotchas that datasheets often omit.
Quaternions and the spatial rotations in motion enabled wearable devices. Exploiting the potential of smart IMUs attitude estimation.
Have you always wondered what a quaternion is? this is your post. Attitude or spatial orientation analysis is a powerful element in wearable devices (and many other systems). Commercially available sensors can provide this information out-of-the-box without requiring complex additional implementation of sensor fusion algorithms. Since these are already on-chip solutions devices can serve as a way to explore and analyze motion in several use cases. Mathematical analysis for processing quaternion is presented along with a brief introduction to them, Although they are not really easy to visualise, a couple fairly simple examples are provided which may allow you to gain some intuition on what's the logic behind them.
Introducing The VolksEEG Project
VolksEEG is an open-source effort to build an FDA-cleared clinical EEG and publish every design so others can manufacture it. The volunteer-driven project centers on the TI ADS1299 8-channel, 24-bit biopotential ADC and combines medical and electrical engineering expertise to confront regulatory, safety, and usability challenges. This blog series will document technical decisions, isolation and safety concerns, and ways engineers can contribute.
Painting with Light to Measure Time
When Jason Sachs needed to verify a first-order sigma-delta LED dimming implementation but had no oscilloscope, he turned to long-exposure "light painting" to turn time into space on a photograph. By sweeping the camera across blinking LEDs he captured pulse trains, read the bit patterns from the light trail, and confirmed the result with a tiny Python accumulator model. The post shares practical tips on timing accuracy, exposure, and avoiding ambient-light artifacts.
