s1axter posted on Fri. December 28th 2007 at 10:21 PM PST
It's been kinda dead around here lately with the holidays so I figured I would make a post. Embedds.com had an article on the 25th about a project on semifluid.com using a PIC18F2550 as a low frequency oscilliscope! The project page has the schematic and firmware for your experimenting pleasure. I should note the project uses the ADC on the PIC to read the voltage and, since there isn't any external circuitry on the schematic, the voltage range is limited to 0-5 volts. If you require a larger voltage range and/or don't want to fry your pic looking at the firmware you could add an external ADC chip or some op-amp circuitry.
s1axter posted on Fri. December 21st 2007 at 12:05 PM PST
No major holiday is complete without some fun project/mod/hack to get into the spirit. With X-mas right around the corner I thought it was time so start the holiday posts. This first one is an instructable for a Musical Greeting Card. Using a PIC10F200 (in the ridiculously small SOT23 packaging) the author shows how to program a simple note player and 200 notes in PIC asm.
A little late to order some SOT23 PICs but something to keep in mind for any event requiring a card for a geek.
s1axter posted on Thu. December 13th 2007 at 01:29 PM PST
Take a look at these cool project that use the German DCF77 system. According to Wikipedia, “DCF77 is a longwave time signal and standard-frequency radio station.” Which broadcasts date and time synced up from an atomic clock in Germany.
Take a look at this project found on Embeds.com, Binary DCF-77 Clock. The project picks up the signal and can display the time and date in a number of different ways using binary on an LED block. The project uses an Atmel ATmega8 microcontroller to decode the signal, modify the internal time and display the result.
Also, if you are interested, take a look at NTP DCF77 LED Clock which uses the same DCF77 receiver module, 60 LEDs, 6 big 7-segment digits and can act as an network NTP server!
Both projects released the schematics and firmware under the GPL so have at it!
doomerz posted on Wed. December 12th 2007 at 04:25 AM PST
Trossen Robotics have just posted their contest winners for the October-November contest. They graded each project on a scale of 0-5 for documentation, coolness, ingenuity, and creativity. Runners up received a 10 % discount on their next Trossen purchase, while third got a $50 gift certificate, Second got a $100 gift certificate and first place received a $200 gift certificate. The winner was by a member whose alias is kdwyer and his project was an autonomous robot named otto. From the article: Otto is a humanoid/track hybrid droid with an incredible range of capabilities. Kdwyer's mission was to make an autonomous robot that could avoid obstacles, track motion, and interact with people through speech and gestures
doomerz posted on Sat. December 8th 2007 at 07:38 AM PST
Its that awesome time of year; the time where final projects are now all due, turned in and posted on the web for everyones enjoyment. Cornell's ECE675 final projects all seemed very interesting, (especially the light source motion tracking unit) and are well worth a look. http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ece576/FinalProjects/. Let us know if you have any final projects that you have just finished and want to show off.
Engadget posted this article today on a oscilloscope used as a display for the MAME arcade emulator. There have been a number of projects that have used the display of an oscilloscope to some cool things lately. There has been the clock, the video demo and now a MAME output device. Not much info is out there just a picture, by maybe the photographer Moose2000 will post more.
PIC based Oscilloscope
S1axter's Tech Log of Crazy Stuff
It's been kinda dead around here lately with the holidays so I figured I would make a post. Embedds.com had an article on the 25th about a project on semifluid.com using a PIC18F2550 as a low frequency oscilliscope! The project page has the schematic and firmware for your experimenting pleasure. I should note the project uses the ADC on the PIC to read the voltage and, since there isn't any external circuitry on the schematic, the voltage range is limited to 0-5 volts. If you require a larger voltage range and/or don't want to fry your pic looking at the firmware you could add an external ADC chip or some op-amp circuitry.
Geeksinside wishes a merry Christmas and happy holidays to all our readers. Eat drink and be merry
No major holiday is complete without some fun project/mod/hack to get into the spirit. With X-mas right around the corner I thought it was time so start the holiday posts. This first one is an instructable for a 
Take a look at these cool project that use the German 
Trossen Robotics have just posted their contest winners for the October-November contest. They graded each project on a scale of 0-5 for documentation, coolness, ingenuity, and creativity. Runners up received a 10 % discount on their next Trossen purchase, while third got a $50 gift certificate, Second got a $100 gift certificate and first place received a $200 gift certificate. The winner was by a member whose alias is kdwyer and his project was an autonomous robot named otto. From the article: Otto is a humanoid/track hybrid droid with an incredible range of capabilities. Kdwyer's mission was to make an autonomous robot that could avoid obstacles, track motion, and interact with people through speech and gestures 
Its that awesome time of year; the time where final projects are now all due, turned in and posted on the web for everyones enjoyment. Cornell's ECE675 final projects all seemed very interesting, (especially the light source motion tracking unit) and are well worth a look. 
