Current Per Pin - Part 2

July 12, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Hardware, Engineering

This time, Andrei concludes his investigation of electric current by looking at LEDs and the ability of microcontrollers to supply current..

Current Per Pin - Part 1

July 05, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Hardware, Engineering

In this post, Andrei's 50th (yay), we start looking at electric current. First a crappy explanation of what current is, then a few examples of current draw to give a feel of current scale. Finally, an experiment.

Next week we'll apply this to LEDs and our processors. Stay tuned.

Looking Out For Number 1

June 01, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Engineering, Hardware

This week Andrei presents a pin 1 spotting guide. Chips, circuit boards, and connectors are all numbered, and this is your guide to figuring out what on your schematic is where on a circuit board.

Plus Penguin music.

I Apply SPI: Good Vibrations

April 26, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Software, Hardware, Engineering

This week, we take a look at the firmware involved in using the SPI bus. From the function calls to control the select pin then send out some data via the SPI bus, the form and specifics of the command structure for an accelerometer, and then we get some data flowing.

Busted data sheets, 16-bit values, and right handed chips - how can you pass this up?

I Apply SPI: Making Connections

April 11, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Engineering, Hardware, Software

This time, Andrei blends together schematics and oscilloscope traces, pours over data sheets and diagrams, and sifts through the jargon of SPI.

The result is a richer understanding of SPI with a side of CubeMX parameters.

I Apply SPI: Scrawls and Traces

Jubilee Auditorium

April 05, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Engineering, Hardware

Once we get into the nitty-gritty of SPI, there is going to be a lot of schematics and oscilloscope pictures that we have to figure out. Now is the time to get up to speed on schematic notation and oscilloscopes.

I SPI

March 27, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Hardware, Engineering

Today we venture into the inky shadows of SPI; the selections, the ticking clocks, the simultaneous data transfers. And what about Naomi?

DMA - Monster Machines Moving Massive Memory Mounds

March 01, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Engineering, Hardware, Software

Need to move big amounts of dirt? You could use a tea spoon or something designed for the job, like a dump truck, or a really big dump truck.

In our programs, occasionally, we have to move large blocks of data. We can move it item by item, or bring out the data moving dump truck of computing, DMA.

This week, Andrei presents two examples of using DMA (with code included).

Discovery: UART Input

January 20, 2017 by Andrei Chichak in Engineering, Software, Hardware

Andrei is back from his Christmas hiatus and brings us a post introducing getting input from a UART.

Previously he had covered output using printf, a helper function called _write, and the HAL routine to send data out of the UART. This time we use the other half of the UART, a different HAL routine, _read, and getchar.

Discovery: UARTs Part 3 - The Final Step

December 14, 2016 by Andrei Chichak in Software, Hardware, Engineering

This week Andrei explains how to get a UART working using Cube. How to get printf working. And introduces the newlib standard library.

This is Andrei's final blog post of 2016, and it'll be useful for your Christmas break project where you learn about ARM processors using CubeMX and ST's Discovery board.

Discovery: UARTs Part 2 - Connections

December 07, 2016 by Andrei Chichak in Hardware, Engineering

Using the UART on our Discovery board requires a little extra hardware before we can use it for debugging.

This week, Andrei reviews some of the ways to hook the Discovery board to your PC.

Discovery: UARTs Part 1

November 30, 2016 by Andrei Chichak in Engineering, Hardware, Software

This week, Andrei introduces the UART. A useful data communications peripheral with a long history.

Follow along as Andrei gives the low down on bits and bauds, hardware handshakes, and inverting buffers.

Discovery: Button Interrupts

November 16, 2016 by Andrei Chichak in Engineering, Hardware, Software

This week, Andrei discusses how our button can be used to generate an interrupt. Other examples include engine management computers. What things should you look out for when using interrupts.

Don't miss the photo at the bottom of the post for a useful hack.

Discovery: Follow The Bouncing Bit

November 11, 2016 by Andrei Chichak in Hardware, Software, Engineering

This time, Andrei looks into switches, their bouncy nature, Schmitt triggers, hardware, and software debounce techniques. Join us for a look into the resistors and capacitors leading to port PA0. See oscilloscope traces in black AND white! All of this and more in this embedded.fm blog post!

Discovery: Buttons

November 02, 2016 by Andrei Chichak in Hardware, Software, Engineering

This week Andrei is writing about buttons. First a bunch of the background stuff that goes along with buttons, how the positrons scoot around and finally make it to the processor. Then he takes a look at the HAL code used to read the button position.

How hard can it be? Well sit down and get comfortable, this won't hurt a bit (we'll leave the hurting bit for next time, Bwa ha haaaaa).