Electronics

This is a testing rig I constructed for my  persistence of vision SpokePOV kit.  I used an old bicycle, ceiling fan motor and wiring from an old lamp.  It works great as a bench testing rig when programming my SpokePOV boards on the wheel. It could also work as a cheap display device.

You can buy these SpokePOV boards at Adafruit.com and get more details on how to build and use your SpokPOV boards at their sister site ladyada.net

This is the second SpokePOV testing rig I’ve built so this one is being donated(*) to HeatSync Labs for testing, learning, hacking and maybe even as a part-time window display.
(*) Not the SpokePOV boards, just the testing rig and old bicycle wheel. 

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This blog post is on the launch of the ANSR (Arizona Near Space Research) near space balloon #55

Rich Osgood from Heatsynclabs.org and I were invited observers. Our objective was to help track the balloon and locate the landing zone while testing our own radio balloon tracking equipment.  I’m working with Heatsynclabs.org in planning a near space balloon flight later this summer and this was great exposure with a group that has now launched 55 near space balloons.  We learned tons about filling the balloon, rigging, radio transmitting, tracking and recovery. Below is some of those details and if you’re interested I pasted the radio details at the very end.

Their flight reached ~92,000 feet before the balloon popped and the payloads parachuted back to Earth. Many schools in the area participated in the launch with a small payload box of their own containing automated cameras and digital data recorders.

Click {more} to see all the photos and radio details.

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A team at Heatsyn Labs is building a near space high altitude balloon payload to take photos and to enter a national contest. I’m not on the team but I was helping test their tracking electronics with my home built vacuum chamber. We used the chamber to test the radio and GPS equipment in near space conditions. Next meeting we will add dry-ice around the chamber to simulate the -70F temps at 100,000 feet. If there is any issues its best if it shows up on the ground and not at 18 miles up.

Heatsync Labs Homepage
Heatsync Labs Nearspace Balloon Project
Flickr photos by John Kit at Heatsyn Labs

I will post update with photos and links after the first test flight.

My friend bought an expensive car starter “jumper box” from Costco when it was on sale, but when he went to use it about 3 months later the battery in the jumper box was dead and wouldn’t charge no matter how long he left the box plugged into a 110v outlet.  He brought the unit to me thinking I could fix it but the battery was shot and was going to cost $75 + shipping to get a drop in replacement 12v sealed lead acid battery for the unit.  He told me to just junk it for parts. 

After thinking about it for a month or so I thought maybe I could modify it to hold a larger 12v lawn mower battery.  I knew it would work just fine if I could find a battery that fit.  I took it apart again to take some internal measurements then headed for Wal-Mart.  Sure enough I found a nice riding lawn mower battery that would fit if I cut out the front-side of the jumper box housing.  The battery even had nice through-hole terminal connectors for bolting on the cables.   This mod ran about $35 for the replacement battery and a 2 foot threaded rod with some lock nuts to hold the battery in the unit.

What follows are some bad (sorry) videos of the modification and some photos.  Its possible any dead jumper box could be brought back to life this way because I would think most take the same size internal 12v sealed lead acid battery and its not a lot of work.

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This will be an ongoing growing list of links for beginners in electronics.  Most links will be to video tutorials and reviews but I will include some blogs and books as well.  There will always be a link to this posting in my side bar under “Tutorials” titled ”Links for Beginners in electronics”.      

<<Videos, blogs, books and more for beginners in electronics>>   

Websites that will help you learn just about everything in electronics for FREE: 

1. http://electronics.wisc-online.com   (super great! site)
2. Nice launch site with clear categories back to wisc-online.com
3. http://www.allaboutcircuits.com   (has good points and bad but I like it)

Start your EE Lab!     

1. Starter kit-Basic: Jameco.com Electronics Toolkit ~$99  (jameco.com)
2. Starter kit-Better: Ladyada’s Electronics Toolkit ~$100  (adafruit.com)
3. Starter kit-Best: Very nice for the money ~$220  (CuriousInventor.com)  
4. Power Supply-Basic : 2 Amp Multi Fixed Outputs ~$20 (circuitspecialists.com) 
5. Power Supply-Better: 0-2A; 0-18VDC ~$58 (circuitspecialists.com)
6. Power Supply-Best: 0-3A; 0-30V  Large LCD ~$198 (circuitspecialists.com)
7. Multimeter-Basic: Extech EX330 $54  (jameco.com)
8. Multimeter-Better: Fluke 17B $89 out of China and not a true RMS meter. (dealextreme.com)
9. Multimeter-Best: Fluke 87-V  $380 (jameco.com) but (I got mine on eBay ~$190 new)
10. Logic analyzer-Basic: USB type – Open Logic Sniffer $45 (dangerousprototypes.com)
11. Logic analyzer-Better: USB type – TOL-08938 $150 (sparkfun.com)
12. Logic analyzer-Best: USB type – Janatek ANNIE $299 (tequipment.net)
13. Function Generator: Instek SFG-1003 DDS 3MHz $153 (tequipment.net)
14. Oscilloscope : Rigol DS1052E 50MHz which can be hacked to 100Mhz: ~$399 (tequipment.net)

 

You can get the Rigol DS1052E 50MHz from USA distributer with free shipping, no tax for $369. 
 You need to request for a reduced quote from “LIVE HELP” on the tequipment.net page.
 Tell them you could order it cheaper out of China for $379 with free shipping, no tax.
 You have to refer to this cheaper Dealextreme.com link which is shipped out of China.
 They should email you a quote number for a price match at $369. They did for me!

 

1. How to equip your lab yourself   (Ladyada.net)
2. Build your own starter kit (Basic, Better, Best)   (Ladyada.net)

 Books you should get ASAP:    

1. Getting Started in Electronics   by Forrest M. Mims III
2. Timer, Op Amp, and Optoelectronic Circuits & Projects Vol. I   by Forrest M. Mims III
3. Science and Communication Circuits & Projects Vol. II   by Forrest M. Mims III
4. Electronic Sensor Circuits & Projects Vol. III   by Forrest M. Mims III
5. Electronic Formulas, Symbols & Circuits Vol. IV   by Forrest M. Mims III
6. The Art of Electronics 2nd edition   by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill

 General knowledge when getting started:      

1. Learn about Multimeters   (Ladyada.net)
2. Multimeter reviews under $55 and PDF chart (EEVBlog.com)
3. Multimeter Counts, Accuracy, Resolution & Calibration   (EEVBlog.com)
4. Pick the right Multimeter for you. (EEVBlog.com)
5. Learn to Solder better   (Ladyada.net)
6. Unregulated Power Supply Tutorial   (Sparkfun.com)
7.  All about batteries   (Ladyada.net) 

Working with micro-controllers:    

1. Dave’s opinion on Arduino plus he compares it to PICAXE   (EEVBlog.com)
2. Arduino vs. Basic Stamp    (TodBot.com)
3. AVR vs. PIC   (Ladyada.net)
4. Arduino Official Home Page   (arduino.cc)
5. Arduino Tutorial    (Ladyada.net)
6. Arduino Tutorial   (Sparkfun.com)
7. Using Sensors with Arduino   (Ladyada.net)
8. Interfacing 3.3V sensor to a 5V micro   (Sparkfun.com)
9. Arduino Hacks Tips, tricks, techniques   (Ladyada.net)
10. Step by step Getting Started with AVRs   (Ladyada.net)
11. Beginning Embedded Electronics   (Sparkfun.com)
12. Micro Annoyances   (Ladyada.net)
13. Breadboard your own Arduino using Atmega8: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3   (Protostack.com)
14. Breadboard Standalone Arduino ATMega328   (instructables.com)
15. Using Character LCDs with Arduino (Ladyada.net)

Robots and motor controls:    

1. Roomba dissection video and using its H-bridge motor control circuit.
2. DC Motor Control Using an H-Bridg (itp.nyu.edu) and (letsmakerobots.com)
3. H-Bridges: Theory and Practice

Make your own PCB – Printed Circuit Boards:      

1. Video on using Photo Resist Pre-Sensitized PCBs (Makezine.com)
2. Photo-etching PCB using ink-jet printer. (YouTube.com)
3. Printed Circuit Board links including DIY and order-out   (Ladyada.net)
4. Make your own PCB – Printed Circuit Boards (Getlofi.com)
5. Order supplies to DIY PCBs (CircuitSpecialists.com) 

 

When you get farther down the road in electronics:       

1. How to get free samples from Manufacturers   (Ladyada.net)
2. When looking for parts you can search all vendors at once at   (FindChips.com)
3. Find any datasheet for your parts at   (AllDatasheet.com)

Great Electronics Parts, Kits and hardware Suppliers:  (* = I have used)      

1. Sparkfun.com   (Just about everything, best shopping site!) *
2. Adafruit.com   (Nice kits & instructions) *
3. CuriousInventor.com   (Great kits, tools and parts)
4. ModernDevice.com
5. ArduinoFun.com
6. StMicroelectronics.com   (free sample order page) *
7. Jameco.com
8. DigiKey.com *
9. Mouser.com *
10. Arrow.com *
11. RadioShack.com   (Get the above books here too) *
12. CircuitSpecialists.com   (I use this supplier a lot) *
13. Electronix Express   (Ugly site but better prices sometimes)
14. FunGizmos.com *
15. HobbyPartz.com *
16. A list of the large electronics distributors   (Ladyada.net)
17. Purchase chips direct, avoiding the middle-man distributor   (Ladyada.net)

Useful software downloads:      

1. This is a nice logic circuit simulator and is good for learning and prototyping virtually. Watch the flash tutorial when you get time and download the free version to play with.

Nice circuit examples and other tutorial videos:    

1. NerdKits.com makes some very good tutorials.
2. Driving a 7 segment display with a 4511 BCD to 7 Segment Driver
3. 74HC595 shift register – Controlling 16 LEDs

  <<EEVBlog: Videos by David L. Jones>>     

Link to the EEVblog

First off I’m going to link to the main EEV Blog page because all videos by David Jones are great, but some videos are NOT for beginners so be warned.  Here are a few that are nice for beginners:      

General knowledge:      

1. Oscilloscope: Bench based Digital Storage Oscilloscope Tutorial
2. Oscilloscope: PC based Digital Storage Oscilloscope Comparison
3. Capacitor Tutorial part 1 (Electrolytic, Tantalum, and Plastic Film)
4. Capacitor Tutorial part 2 (Ceramics and impedance)
5. Capacitor Tutorial part 3 (Exploding Capacitors)
6. Logic Analyzer Tutorial part 1
7. Logic Analyzer Tutorial part 2
8. Decibels (dB’s) for Engineers – A Tutorial
9. Linear and Switch Mode Power Supplies - A Tutorial

Product reviews (good to watch if you’re looking to buy some equipment):    

1. Oscilloscope: Rigol DS1052E   <$500 US
2. Function Generator: Instek 3mhz GFG-8219A    ~$300 US (starts at 2:45 minutes)
3. Power Supply: Jaycar powertech mp3086   ~$150 US
4. Power Supply: BK Precision 1697   (Programmable) ~$350
5. MCU programmer: Microchip PICkit2   (starts at 6:50 minutes)
6. MCU programmer: Microchip PICkit3
7. Multimeter: Pocket variety   ~$30 US (starts at 7:20 minutes)
8. Multimeter: Reviews under $55 and PDF chart
9. Multimeter: Cheap Chinese multimeters and why they suck   ~$20 to ~$90 US
10. Multimeter: Meterman 37XR   ~$140 US
11. Multimeter: Fluke 117   ~$170 US
12. Multimeter: Fluke 233   ~$300 US
13. Multimeter: Fluke 87-V part 1   ~$380 US (starts at 7:50 minutes)
14. Multimeter: Fluke 87-V part 2
15. Multimeter: Fluke 28 Series II part 1   ~$430 US
16. Multimeter: Fluke 28 Series II part 2 
17. Multimeter: Fluke 189/289 part 1   ~$450 US
18. Multimeter: Fluke 189/289 part 2
19. Multimeter: Agilent U1253A OLED   ~450 US
20. Multimeter: Gossen Metrawatt Xtra   ~$500 US  You can buy the Metrawatt Xtra in the USA {here}.

  <<Fast Forward, Acme School and Half Handy >>    

Here are some great old school Canadian TV videos hosted by David Stringer:      

Electronics and electricity topics:    

1. Electricity and how to create and use it (very good)
2. What is a watt and how to calculate electrical usage and costs (Watts = volts * amps)
3. Alternating current and how and why its used in your home
4. Magnetism and its use and durability for recorded media.
5. All about Batteries (fuzzy, hard to watch, but very good information)
6. Binary counting in digital electronics
7. Vacuum tubes to transistors to micro processors
8. Older video on vacuum tubes to transistors. 

Miscellaneous topics:      

1. Explain house wires (ground, black and white)
2. Canada power company load balancing and delivery

This is a super powerful little circuit when playing an online game that logs you out of the game after not sensing any key strokes for a minute or two.  Being I put this circuit in Wii shaped mint tin I called it the Wii Wand of Power. 

It’s just a simple timing circuit made of discreet elements that engages a reed relay ever 25 sec.  This relay in turn closes a circuit in my keyboard for the left arrow key.  Being this external circuit is self powered I can simply turn it on when I want a game or application to think I’m at my computer when I’m not. I know there are software hacks that can do this and I did try a lot of them but this particular on line game I play had a way to block such software hacks.  I had to go old school, which is not hard for an old guy, and do it with hardware.

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Holiday Sun Jar

This is a detailed instructional post so you can make yourself a Holiday Sun Jar, which will bottle the sun and use it’s energy as a natural “green” nightlight.

A “Holiday Sun Jar” is just a Ball Mason glass jar painted with a holiday scene and the guts of a cheap solar powered walkway light affixed to the underside of the lid. The solar panel charges the battery during the day and at night the sun jar puts out a soft glowing light for about 8 hours.  This was a very fun family project and makes for a great gift for Christmas or any other occasion, just pick an appropriate scene.

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If you’re new to electronics or just never really grasped decibel units (dB’s) you MUST watch this GREAT tutorial  posted at the EEVblog . 

Decibels (dB’s) for Engineers

I had great fun this Halloween with a silly string shooting spider!  My plan was to use an Arduino micro-controller developer board to control my son’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” RC car that already shoots silly string.  I didn’t get the spider to actually squirt the silly string but when you’re looking at a big black spider and something shoots silly string at you from the same direction it scares you just the same. 

I was inspired to do this 4 hour marathon build by a blog posting by Eric on www.Instructables.com. Eric created a silly string shooting pumpkin which was so incredible I just had to build a spider for Halloween that did the same.

My major problem was that once I heard about Eric’s pumpkin I only had a day to get the supplies and about 4 hours of free time to wire-up something, code it and get it out in the front yard before the kids started coming for tricks or treats.

Here is a component breakdown of the final prop.

• The red dot and arrow point to the RC car hiding under a bush.
• 2) RC car remote control.
• 3) Relay used by pin 2 on the Arduino to fire the remote control’s silly string button.
• 4) Arduino board: Duemilanove with ATmega328 Purchased from adafruit.com
• 5) Small blue servo to yank on the spiders leg: TowerPro SG-50.
• 6) Two red LEDs for spider eyes. Not on the spider I know, I ran out of dev time
• 7) Parallax Ping))) sonar sensor, held up with helping hands.
• 8 ) Big black spider

 
I originally wanted the string to shoot from the spider’s behind but I really didn’t have time for that so I hid the RC car in the bushes behind the spider and loaded it with a fresh can of silly string.  All I really had to do was get the Arduino to sense somebody getting to close to the spider’s face and then “POW!” fire the silly string using the car’s remote control.

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This will be a 7 part blog posting on one project at varying stags of completion that my daughter and I worked on over our fall vacation.

My daughter wanted to install a POV (persistence of view) device on her bicycle spokes which would allowed her to draw images on her laptop and upload the drawings to be displayed in her spokes as she rode around at night.  I found the best kit for this at Adafruit.com called SpokePOV. 

Below is a short video of the final assembled and functioning kit with a manga type winking happy face animation my daughter created in Photoshop.  

My digital camera set to video record makes the image appear shaky and flashy but this looks a ton better to the human eye.  I guess you will just have to take me at my word for now, but later I will try to get better video using a real camcorder.

The seven blog posts I’m planning, starting with this one, will be:
  1) Assembling the 3 SpokePOV boards & setup for single sensor triggering
  2) Mounting an adjustable magnet on the bike frame for SpokePOV trigger
  3) Building bench testing rig for SpokePOV
  4) Programming images and setting the SpokePOV board offsets
  5) Halloween image uploads with video of SpokePOV in action
  6) Troubleshooting and resolving SpokePOV image skew issue
  7) Fixing image skew issue using my own creation called “Corrective Raiser image Board” (CRiB)

PART 1) Assembling the 3 SpokePOV boards & setup for single sensor triggering

My 17yr old daughter did all the assembly and photographing.  She has been doing PCB board assembling since she was six years old and is one of the best at using a solder iron I have seen, including myself.  She only burnt herself once but that was actually my fault because I was holding the iron and pointing at something. So truthfully I burnt her, she didn’t burn herself.

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