Archive for May, 2008

LED lamps will replace light bulbs in near future

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Seems this can be true. Faiz Rahman who is a nano electronics researcher at Glazgow university states that low-energy bright LED light Bulbs are almost here. As matter of fact LEDs are very energy efficient, but fact is that about 70% of electrical energy is converted to light, and only about 20% of it getting [...]

Space Explorer – Smart Taurus 2

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

Even wonder to turn your home into outer space colonization?
Make your dream come alive and make yourself a Space Explorer, Taurus 2.
Before that, you need to prepare some components:

Four wheels
Eight servos
Three proximity IRs
A CMU cam

For [...]

Word’s first appendix operation through the mouth

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

Non invasive surgery is getting more common and popular because of many reasons like less scars, less risk to patients life, faster recovery. All technologies needed are here and there is no reason not to use it.

Probably appendix surgery is one of most frequent operation. Is is quite simple and seems obvious method - surgeon [...]

Stylish wind-powered wifi AP repeater

Friday, May 9th, 2008

The fuel matter has turned into a global alert, where all of the countries around the world need to face the insane fuel price each day, either they like it or not.

Many energy reproductive scientists try to find and exploits any kind of alternative energy that will be the best replacement for the fossil fuel. [...]

Voltage references in embedded design

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Embedded systems that are dealing with DAC require a good voltage references. Despite all voltage references have their nominal values there are specific tolerances that indicates how much values can vary from nominal value. References as a rule are semiconductors that characteristics are effected by temperature.

For instance if we decide to use a 2.5V voltage [...]

Peggy 2.0 led display board

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Guys from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories have released 2nd version of their Peggy LED display kit. It is a 25×25 LED display board which is capable to display various LED effects, output text and even animation with individual LED addressing.

WPvideo 1.10

Download!

This is quite smart construction allowing to drive any number of LEDs (from one to [...]

Yet Another Simple AVR ISP cable

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Probably this programmer cable can be found on every AVR fan website. It very simple and easy to build. You just need few passive components that can be packed inside LPT connector. From my perspective I wouldn’t recommend using this one programmer if you are more serious in microcontroller projects, because it has poor computer [...]

Cornell ECE Final Microcontroller Projects - Spring 08

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

It’s been ten years when Cornell University Computer Engineering students were publishing their final embedded projects. I always enjoy browsing over that big list of complete projects. You can get some crazy ideas here but also some good lessons that could be helpful while building your own projects.

DIY unique PCB Drill

Monday, May 5th, 2008

This PCB drill is made of wood and looks really cool. Wouldn’t mind to have one on my table. Design is very unique - it uses various custom made parts, motors from old printers and VCR’s. Author even simulated all design code on a Labcenter’s Proteus VSM.