Capacitive touch is “rad”. By utilizing one of the simplest physical characteristics of an object – charge storage, one is able to measure the presence of a grounded object including touch and pressure. There are a couple of capacitive touch libraries that I’ve seen around but many require dedicated hardware, for example the TSC peripheral […]
Servos are great. They generally work really well and contain all the control and drive circuitry for reasonably precise error free position keeping. Servos are interfaced through PPM with the standard generally being deemed as a pulse between 1ms – 2ms and a period of 20ms. I’ve written code before for the STM32F0 discovery boards to allow servos to […]
Having already designed the microcontroller in a simulation environment, I wanted to take it to the implementation phase. I’d previously shown an implementation of a timer in simulation so keeping the same test program, I wanted to make sure it worked in implementation! Firstly, I decided to replace the simulation ROM and RAM for IP […]
It’s been a while since I’ve sat down to do some proper VHDL but today (after MASSIVE advances with the Phobass these past few days), I’ve decided to write a miniature version of the HMCU. I say miniature in the lightest sense. Features: MISC architecture featuring 9 Instructions 16bit processing capability (22bit program word length) […]
Well it certainly has been a long time since I last posted! This however is something I’ve been wanting to try and implement for a long time, I just haven’t got round to it as of yet. So what is it you ask? How about: The ability to use UART on any pin with edge […]
Well! It turns out I’m coming to the end of my work placement (booo!) but boy have I learnt a lot. A lot of my work consisted of writing VHDL, along with testing its functionality in a simulation environment. I’ve learnt about text file parsing, different methods of structuring your VHDL code, along with good […]
Well it seems all of my projects recently have been based around my LCD monitor! I think its just because its fun to actually be able to see the outcome of your work as opposed to just seeing a statement change in debug or an LED flash. This isn’t actually an original idea of mine, I […]
Yet another project with my STM32F0 discovery board… A simple capacitance meter! The value of capacitance can be determined by the time that it takes for a capacitor to charge through the resistor. A precise way to do this would involve using two comparators, 4 precision resistors (three for a precise biasing source and one […]
With my final exam looming over the next two days, on power supply electronics, I decided to actually apply the knowledge I learnt for once to design a COMPLETELY makeshift boost converter for a high power LED I’d purchased previously (http://goo.gl/zFooZK – Link will expire!). I don’t really see the use for me to have […]
As I’ve previously said I’m not actually very good at analog design – due to a mixture of not really being taught past the basics and maths not being my strong point! Nonetheless, I enjoy doing it and when the circuits I design work as I intend, its a great feeling of achievement, much more […]
