What a mess! The UK doesn’t seem capable of organising any large engineering projects, including power stations, airports or railways. This is not because of a failure of technology or engineering ability, it is completely the fault of the politicians.
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AVRStudio Explored
AVRStudio is the development software for AVR microcontrollers supplied by Atmel to allow users to easily develop code for their devices. It includes project management, code editors, assembler and C compilers, simulator and programmer and emulator support. It has been developed over the years and has reached AtmelStudio v7.2 but older versions are available, so which version is the best for you?
Using the AVR Xmega Microcontroller Family
Atmel have added the Xmega series to their AVR range and we are seeing more interest in these microcontrollers as time goes by, but who should be looking at using them?
Well for a start, it is not a chip for complete beginners and people wanting to learn microcontrollers from scratch would be better off starting with standard AVR ATmega microcontroller kits or PIC Microcontroller Kits.
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3D Printing At Home
There has been much discussion recently about 3D printing, especially with the idiots producing the plastic gun, but has 3D printing got to the stage were it is viable for domestic use, a replicator in every front room, or more likely garage?
Using USART or UART on a Microcontroller
First, what is the difference between these terms, UART and USART? UART stands for Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter, and USART means Universal Synchronous and Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter. Most microcontrollers today, like PIC and AVR, have USART, but the Synchronous function is not often used as they have other synchronous devices like I2C and SPI. So this post will concentrate on asynchronous transmission, which is the same on both devices.
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Custom ISP Connectors
To carry out In System Programming (ISP) of devices, such as AVR, ST7 and PIC microcontrollers or serial EEPROMs, you need an ISP connector on your PCB that matches the format on the programmer you intend to use, but this isn’t always that simple.
Resurrecting Voloci Electric Motorbike
The Voloci electric motorbike was made and sold by Nova Cruz Products Inc. during the period 2001-2003. It was too far ahead of its time and production soon ceased, but there are quite a lot of them out there. Unfortunately, the firmware had a bug and could get corrupted and a lot of these bikes did not get the very last update that fixed this. Kanda have just been working with one such guy to help him resurrect his machine.
Firmware Updates in the Field
All microcontroller based applications include the microcontroller code called firmware but it is surprising how many people forget that they may need to update it when their products are scattered at customer locations. This may be because (heaven forbid) that they discover a bug in the system that needs to be corrected or, more commonly, that the product needs new features in response to customer feedback or competitor’s actions. So how do we simplify firmware updates?
Program in C or Assembler?
A common question we get is should I program my microcontroller in C or assembler? This usually means do I bother with assembler or just use C. Sometimes it just means that I do not know the difference. So what is the difference?
What is AVR microcontroller?
An AVR microcontroller is a type of device manufactured by Atmel, which has particular benefits over other common chips, but first what is a microcontroller?
The easiest way of thinking about it is to compare a microcontroller with your PC, which has a motherboard in it. On that motherboard is a microprocessor (Intel, AMD chips) that provides the intelligence, RAM and EEPROM memories and interfaces to rest of system, like serial ports (mostly USB ports now), disk drives and display interfaces.
A microcontroller has all or most of these features built-in to a single chip, so it doesn’t need a motherboard and many components, LEDs for example, can be connected directly to the AVR. If you tried this with a microprocessor, bang!