1.5 c Microcontroller alert.

Very low-end, but 38kHz support is explicitly called out in its product manual. This means that this tiny uC is ideal for TV remote control (or other IR-blasters).

I wouldn't recommend anyone use this chip unless you were some kind of professional saving pennies. Typical $1 uCs are far easier to work with and have exponentially more power (even $1 8-bit uCs). Still, its an interesting thought experiment for what a 1.5 cent uC could be used to implement....

This blogger booted an F1C100s from scratch, even though they made a mistake buying 16MBit instead of 16MByte of Flash. (Requiring to be booted off of USB-bootloader / Allwinner's FEL Protocol instead of Flash).

So a few mistakes were made, but its still a custom booting Linux + blogpost that explains the steps.

What really interests me about this design is the ~~buck~~ Boost-converter

So this ~~buck~~ boost-converter is 100% core-independent. The Analog Comparator, TimerD, CCL, and Event-System are all active while the AVR DB sleeps, meaning that the microcontroller can run this simple ~~buck~~ boost-converter without any cost to CPU time.

An incredible design that demonstrates the flexibility of AVR DB's combined peripherals.

Hacker News discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40560300

A random article talking about I2C on the NuttX RTOS.

I haven't heard of NuttX before, but the supported platforms (https://nuttx.apache.org/docs/latest/platforms/index.html) is quite impressive, including several chips I'm interested in. There's a number of 8-bit processors (albeit larger ones) on the list, though I'd assume this NuttX OS is best served on a microprocessor??

Edited the "I" for less confusion. The blogpost's title is "I made a...", but "I" (Dragontamer) didn't do this. I just found this blogpost and though it was relevant for this sublemmy.

I don't care what's it gonna take. I just want a connection. I guess I can connect the VCC to another voltage source, but I have the same thing happened to TX on another circuit board, although that one can "flip" (it is still attached marginally... at one end).

Board: T Deck Lilygo.

Some poor sap made a few hundred DIP chip labels for breadboarding that are designed for a little more functionality than is typical. They were uploaded to github along with a GIMP file, templates, instructions, and ready to print PDF files for labels and popular kits/projects like Ben Eater's breadboard computer and 6502 projects.

The labels are intended to be more intuitive and informative than just pin labels, and these were made with brute force without programmic efficiency. For instance, many logic chips have truth tables and more. These take a lot of confusion out of the back and forth of documentation and wiring.

https://github.com/Upcycle-Electronics/ChipLabels

This PDF talks about blue and infrared LEDs + photodiode and how to create a smoke detector out of them.

The gist is to send a signal over blue LED + infrared LED, and then measure from the photodiode to see how much the light reflects back (which will only reflect back in the presence of smoke).

This design uses the 2x free OpAmps on the MSPM0L (Cortex M0+) microcontroller, showing a mixed-signal design where one mixed-signal microcontroller can reduce the number of parts.

Pretty basic but I've been enjoying Vik's articles on RF topics.

Hello everyone, I need some advice.

I am making custom PCBs for a project of mine. It's basically for a little remotely controlled robot using little DC motors. I chose the Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3 as the uC since it has inbuilt wifi/bt, 3.3V regulator that I can use to power the motors (can source up to 700mA) and lipo charging management (the robots will run on battery). As you can see from here, the microcontroller is surface mounted and the pads for the battery are on the bottom layer. Same story goes for the thermal pad of the microcontroller and the thermal pad of the motor driver (datasheet). I have worked with SMD components in the past and can solder them by hand, but I have never worked with SMD components that have thermal pads on the bottom layer. My question is: how to manage (route?) them? My PCB is 2-layer and I was planning on having both layers filled with a ground plane. Do I just connect thermal pads to the ground plane and call it a day? Wouldn't that make the components hard to solder with hot air? Do I make an isolated polygon that only acts as a thermal pad?

Speaking of soldering is even hot air the way to go in this case? My PCB has components on both sides, and I was planning on ordering stencils together with the boards and using solder paste, placing the components and then using hot air to solder the components in place. I thought a hot plate would be better but I don't have access to one and I don't know how that works with components on both sides.

I attached some photos of the PCB in Kicad, and here's the git repo. If it is of any help, I'm planning of having them manifactured by JLCPCB. It is also my first time using KiCad, so go easy on me :)

Thanks!

I found a radio from 2003 that was missing a power cord, and I first thought it needed a polarized C7 power cord, but it won't fit at all. Looking at it more closely, it looks like a polarized C2 connector, but it's also locking? I tried searching online but I couldn't find anything for the C1/C2 connectors that's polarized, not even considering the locking aspect. Is this something anyone is familiar with? It's not a high end or particularly old radio or anything.

Here is a link to a picture, I wasn't able to upload it to lemmy directly.

I own a Samsung monitor, and when it's in standby mode the LED blinks all night. My hearing is so sensitive, and my room so quiet, that I can actually hear the LED powering on and off.

So, every night I power it off manually. Sometimes I forget as I turn my PC off, and as I'm laying comfortably in bed, falling asleep, I hear it cycling, so I have to get out of bed, walk over, and turn it off, which delays my sleep.

At this point I'm tempted to take off the bottom panel and break the LED with a screwdriver, but I'm worried that this might change how the current flows through the monitor's circuit board.

I would appreciate any advice, suggestions or insights, thanks in advance!

For those EEs interested in Wireless Communications like myself. Coming from more cellular communications type of stuff, I find the fact that 4096 QAM is possible over the air crazy.

This is from a module I'm using and I don't understand this part of it. https://files.waveshare.com/upload/3/3c/RP2040-Touch-LCD-1.28.pdf

This post demonstrates a microcontroller bit-banging an old version of Bluetooth LE

MIT has a tradition of putting classes online for sharing. There's lots of good links here, so it should be a good reference for yall.

This Mastodon post hit #1 on Hacker News today, I think people around here would be interested.

Then you look at the $350 price point and walk away.

Atmel / Microchip created this Application note on how to drive the low-power and low-cost LCD segment displays.

However, LCDs should be energized with AC signals, due to their internal capacitor-like structure. No worries: microcontrollers can send AC signals thanks to PWM-like on-off sequences. But thinking about this AC signal and how it energizes LCD segments is rather complex if you've never done it before.

In fact, the electrical hookup here can be more complex than you expect. Its still a cheap hookup only requiring resistors directly connected to the pins, but... you need to think about this.

Note: If you're only doing a simple "Static" LCD, a simpler application note (https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/Appnotes/doc2569.pdf) will be sufficient.

But some LCD screens, especially the ones with more segments, will have multiplexing. And multiplexing requires a more complex signal and electrical hookup to accomplish successfully.

Seems like a curiosity that people would like here.