Using a manufacturer independent tooling can have good impacts on autonomy, learning experience and realization on what really works for an engineer regarding the whole embedded development process. I wanted to look for a complete setup working natively in Windows, yet as much as possible open source, to have a manufacturer independent tooling. I will … Continue reading Open source ARM based toolchain development and debug on Windows with no emulation
Projects
The EdoSplay project
In the watchmaking industry there are not only cogs and gears. Nowadays, even the high watchmaking industry focuses on sophisticated digital technology, to combine it with the fine art of mechanics. And it exists, once open-source, even an RTOS owned by Swatch, for which I had the pleasure to use, and mostly to be mentored … Continue reading The EdoSplay project
MC34063, the jellybean converter (Part 1) – Introduction design of a voltage inverter
When I needed to design a dual power supply I was looking for parts capable to handle buck, buck-boost, with inverting and non inverting properties. Because I was also looking for a contained budget, I've been fascinated by a single, multipurpose part, capable of doing all of this. I immediately realized it was the 555 … Continue reading MC34063, the jellybean converter (Part 1) – Introduction design of a voltage inverter
Glighter-A driver LED – The mixed signal control
It was not long time ago in which was developed a small DC-DC LED driver - Glighter-S, my first switching LED driver. It was the natural consequence of the need for efficiency after the development experiment of the linear LED driver - Glighter. No long time after these experiments, the need for analog control in … Continue reading Glighter-A driver LED – The mixed signal control
DS1307 RTC Emulator – The Arduino library
Things must come to an end. I decided to make a new library experiment, putting an ending mark to the DS1307 Real Time Clock hacking project, because the project was born as an encapsulation of a real RTC in a PIC microcontroller, wrapping an RTC hardware engine to emulate the DS1307; then a subsequent development on … Continue reading DS1307 RTC Emulator – The Arduino library
HardWire, the enhanced Arduino Wire library
I have spent a lot of time on playing and later working on the I2C buses. I almost always used self developed libraries, both for learning and job requirement purposes. Then, when experimenting with a portability of a project in the Arduino environment, I started to trying the official Wire library, discovering some incompatibilities for my … Continue reading HardWire, the enhanced Arduino Wire library
Lino Project
I am playing with LEDs for few month and during that time some little projects were born, but now I need a system to handle the logical part and the power distribution. I simply just can't use an Arduino board, or any other development board: I need a proper power handling embedded in a small space, … Continue reading Lino Project
Tiny, robust, low cost, fail-safe LED driver: the Glighter-S project
It has been a while since the last LED related article. Was experimented the linear current source, its pros and cons and the field of application. Now arises the need of a small version, handling the same high power, things that are contrapposed in the linear regulator. I need something that I can bring with … Continue reading Tiny, robust, low cost, fail-safe LED driver: the Glighter-S project
Current sources for LEDs – Glighter: a multichannel LED Driver
A power constant current source, high speed, for power LEDs. Taken all the errors made previously, I tried a new linear based current source which should be kept "simple" and "fast".
Current sources for LEDs: firsts DIY impressions
Recently I found that today almost lighbulbs are made with power LEDs. And surprisingly most of them are made so cheap that the controller fails far away before its lifetime. At least for what I've experienced with few models. Most of them seems to work well, and I think that LEDs are the future for … Continue reading Current sources for LEDs: firsts DIY impressions
ALEA 