Currently there are huge amounts of different digital IC chips available in the market starting from simplest logical elements and ending with processors and gate arrays (FPGA). Of course there also are lots of IC manufacturers offering IC’s. Many of them are specialized and wont be reviewed here. Lets limit ourself to smaller more general [...]

This is fun project I found on Jon’s antique radios web-page. He has managed to convert VGA output signal from PC to X Y X oscilloscope signal. Converting VGA RGB signal to synchronized oscilloscope input signal is pretty easy because VGA has two sync signals separate from RGB signals. Look at pin-out of VGA cable:

Sync [...]

The generator was build and tested by nuxie1 using XR-2206 function generator IC, which is capable to generate sine, square, ramp and pulse waveforms in frequency range of 0.01Hz to 1MHz. The amplitude and frequency is modulated by voltage (potentiometers). The example circuit from datasheet worked well:

Second step – project creation. Project Eagle files [...]

Sometimes you need quick an easy solution for programming serial EEPROM memory chips. I think easiest and well known method is to use simple programmer adapter with very few components:

This adapter is connected to RS232 port and there is no need for additional power supply as it comes form PORT pin. Adapter is compatible with [...]

I found interesting article about capacitance of ceramic capacitors may depend on voltage applied.
It seems to be that in some designs you can face a problem when ceramic capacitor capacitance may strongly depend on voltage. Few tests were done with various capacitors using following circuit:

In the circuit CX – tested capacitor; C0 – known [...]

Decibel is a special unit that is a little different from other measuring units in everyday practices. This is non physical unit but more mathematical understanding. Decibel (dB) units are similar to percent (%), just different calculation and purpose. As a percent units so decibels are used to compare two quantities. As whole value in [...]

Sensor ir transducer is a device which converts one type of energy to another – usually electric. They are used for various purposes including measurement or information transfer. Generally speaking sensor or transducer is a device that converts a signal from one to another.
Lets go through transducer characteristics that describe a performance of sensors.
One of [...]

When talking of artificial intelligence(AI) many people think that neural nets should be as intelligent as human brain. Some people don’t even imagine how widely they are used in their life. Lets narrow us to something more simple and understandable.
The most exiting usage of AI is robotics. Today isn’t very hard to build simple robot [...]

RS-422 is a standard for serial data transfer similar to RS-232, but it uses difference between two lines (RS-232 uses reference to ground). RS-422 uses twisted pair (difference pair) to represent logic level. Such data transmission type is so called balanced transmission as it is not referenced to ground. This is noise proof solution because [...]

After I have made simple RS232 adapter I have decided to improve it a little bit and added status LEDs of TXD and RXD lines. This adapter works with my AVR development board and should work with any TTL level UART interface. Unit is powered from target board using power pins.
The circuit:

And PCB:

After putting board [...]