Hey #electronics folks! <3 I want to build a CO2 sensor with a battery life of several months. First using prototyping boards, then maybe as a custom PCB.
Some questions:
What kind of approach/device would you suggest to measure the power consumption of such a device? I hope to end up in the single-digit mW range.
What would be the lowest-power components required to drive a small e-ink screen?
Does the 328P seem like a suitable controller, if I don't need any connectivity?
today's fun #electronics tip: you can detect the state of two switches or buttons using a single input pin on a microcontroller that supports internal pullups (which is most of them) as long as you don't need to detect both being pressed at once.
to read the button state, turn the internal pullup off, read the pin, turn the pullup on, and read the pin again. if the value changed, no button is pressed. high both times = top button, low both times = bottom button.
Found a "potential" solution for my high-voltage power supply - just use an off-the-shelf capacitor charger, then abuse a Power-over-Ethernet transformer and run it in reverse, turning it into a kilovolt generator... None of the vendor-specified transformers are rated above 1 kV so I initially did not consider this idea. But after some hunting, I found a PoE transformer with seemingly workable specs. #electronics
Listen friends I need your help. I'm deeply attracted to these various kinds of enclosures and have a deep need to buy them and instal LCD screens and big click-y knobs and such in them... but I don't know what the heck I want to build.
I'm in danger of just getting one and "figuring it out later" this is madness.
Fixed my #adsb receiver, hopefully- switched to a beefy AudioWind DC to DC regulator to go from 12V to 5V supply for the #raspberrypi - prior converter seemed unreliable. #electronics
Power rail probes are a handy #oscilloscope accessory, because they let you apply a voltage offset before the signal hits the scope. This allows you to look at ripple on low-impedance, highish-voltage power rails.
At my work, I wrote #KiMesh, a security mesh generator plugin for #KiCad. A security mesh is a set of labyrinth-like traces covering an area on a #PCB to detect someone drilling or sawing through it. I'm happy to report, that you can now install KiMesh on KiCad nightly through the built-in plugin manager.
if you were sorting a parameter by ascending numeric value (in some sort of parameteric search engine) and the values included positive, negative, and ± values all together, where would you want the ± ones to be placed?
context is electronics stuff, where you're searching for a part that fits your required specs.
was watching someone drawing schematics and realised a lot of people have trouble with clean layout when it comes to decoupling.
rather than trying to wire decoupling caps to the schematic symbol, which often ends up messy because there's no good place to position the caps, I tend to put them next to the part with their own power and ground net flags.
if there are multiple caps in parallel, I place them in order of physical proximity to the device.
if you're in the UK and want a ton of white CRI90 4000K SMD LEDs for basically nothing, this eBay seller has boxes and boxes of 2500pcs reels, fully sealed in original vacuum packaging, and is getting rid of them at a ludicrous discount.
they're normally more like £130 per reel, but they're listed here at £17 per reel and they even accepted my offer of £15 for one and later £11/ea for another 3 reels.
I have been reminded again that not everyone knows about the difference between old tantalum capacitors and modern tantalum polymer capacitors.
the whole "tantalum capacitors catch fire" thing occurs due to oxygen production at internal fissure boundaries in the dielectric during breakdown when exposed to overvoltage. heat + oxygen = fire.
tantalum polymer dielectrics absorb oxygen at fissure boundaries instead of producing it, self-healing them against this effect. no fire.
Fedi #electronics folks: is it foolish to try and use one of those cheap isolated DC/DC modules to drive a bidirectional power switch made of back-to-back N-channel FETs?
In this application, the switching frequency will be glacial (switching on or off every hour at the most). So slow switching isn't really a concern provided it will turn all the way on and off each time.
The only definite downside I can see is that it'll waste some current when on.
However I can't help think that I've missed something obvious here and it simply won't work.
Can any #electronics folk answer this for me please?
Is it possible to use enameled magnet wire to connect together IC socket pins, such that I can wrap the wire round the pins & expect the enamel to burn off when soldered? That is to say, without having to prepare the wire in advance: I understand it's possible to scrape off the enamel, and I saylw a trick to burn it off in a "puddle" of solder, but I need to connect a number of pins in series, so am looking for a quick way that works. Thanks!
First chipshots from the new microscope. No idea what this chip is, other than by Motorola and with a mask code of B61T ZC419213. Does anyone recognise the artwork next to the batwing in the first photo? I'm guessing it's a country, county/state or city. #ICRE#siliconart#electronics
Edit: thanks to everyone who pointed out that's Switzerland! The chip also has the text "Motorola EDO" and "EDO Geneva" on it, which should have been a hint XD
I'm thinking how to add it to the general grid, how to physically protect it, or maybe store an encrypted archive of messages, or just fill in the code from a regular node and they will not be in the general list, but they will fulfill their function. Need advice on a high good but not expensive Lora antenna that would overcome the range of the area of 5km
I am trying to create a fancy timed shutter for my camera. But I am having this stupid problem where I can't get it to not look like some sort of detonation device. I am going to have to take this thing on a plane at some point, and I can't finish this project because of that stupid problem.
I tried some things already, like seen in the attached images, but I don't think my solutions are helping.
Does anyone here have any ideas cause I am getting kinda hopeless #electronics
faffed about with some more simulation for transmission line termination on @mos_8502's ZSA bus. Iooks like serial termination on the cards and VTT termination on the backplane is probably workable, but in case someone has a better idea I asked about it on StackExchange.
if you're reading this and you've designed stuff with 50MHz+ single-ended signals that required termination, your thoughts would be much appreciated.