This is a microphone that I have custom made. And if you’re wondering how good it sounds, well you’re hearing it right now. I’d say that it sounds really good considering that it is homemade. The circuit isn’t even that complex, although there certanly is a lot of room for improvement, as you will see later in this video. Really, the secret to the audio quality all starts with this piece right here, the microphone capsule. So, without further ado, let me show you how I made this.
Here is my stepper motor making those precise 180 degree turns. Well, I think you may be surprised to see that the driver is actually this huge breadboard circuit. Some of you are probably thinking that I’m insane. I mean, why not just use this tiny A4988 stepper driver? It’s a whole lot simpler, more efficient, and will save a lot of space. And you are right, but today’s video is an exercise in engineering. Somebody had to design a stepper motor driver from scratch at one point. So, stick around and I’ll show you how I was able to make a stepper motor driver completely from scratch. Let’s dive in.
A power supply is one of those electronics projects that is popular among beginners. And linear supplies are popular in this case for their seemingly simple nature. However, their design can be deceptively complex when you add more and more functionality to them. Unfortunately, I myself have neglected to make one of my own. That’s why I’ve documented my design process so hopefully you can make one of your own. So without further ado, let’s dive in!
I’m sure many of your are familiar with a device much like this. This is a microcontroller programmer. More specifically, an AVR ISP MKII. And as a programmer is meant to do, it takes our code written on a computer, and then writes it into our microcontrollers. And usually, this process works with a hitch, until you make a specific mistake that locks you out of the microcontroller. And then, this thing becomes a glorified paper-weight, unless you know about a different method of programming. And that is parallel programming. Parallel programming for AVR microcontrollers is the ultimate programming method, and it can overcome any software issue. So join me today, as I teach you about parallel programming, and how you can use it to unlock one of your microcontrollers, just like this one.
Oftentimes, you will find yourself wanting to make one of your electronics projects portable. And you can’t exactly do that when you need access to a power outlet from the wall. That’s where batteries come into play. They come in all sorts of sizes and different chemistries, but one of them has risen to be the most popular today. And those batteries are Lithium Polymer or Lithium Ion batteries. What sets them apart from other batteries, such as Alkaline or NiMH batteries? Well, in this video I’ll explain what sets Li-Po batteries apart from other batteries, how to charge them, and how to put them into one of your circuits.
Radio is certainly one of humanity’s most interesting achievements. With it, we are able to wirelessly communicate over very long distances. That’s why I picked up this really old General Electric pocket radio. It only operates through AM modulation, and as you will see in the video, it is a very simple design. That’s what sparked my interest in creating an AM transmitter. How difficult would it be to send an audio signal, like music or one of my videos, to this radio wirelessly? And what would it’s quality be like? Well, in this video, I’ll show you if its really feasible to make your own AM transmitter, how far it can transmit, and how good the quality is.
Welcome back to beyond Arduino. In the previous two entries, I talked about how certain peripherals of AVR microcontrollers work. And while these simulator boards are all good and fun, you should use an actual AVR microcontroller eventually. And since this series is titled “Beyond Arduino”, you most likely have an Arduino board yourself, which runs using an AVR microcontroller. No worries if you don’t though, you can follow along with the video and get into AVRs without an Arduino. Anways, the point of this video is to show you how you can take the rather bulky arduino boards and remove all of the unneccesary components, leaving only what you need. This video will also show you how you can program these microcontrollers without relying on any of those USB to UART converters or even a bootloader. So, in hindsight, this could have been episode one. Either way, let’s get into it.
In my last USB video, I told you how the USB protocol worked and how you could use a special ATmega16u2 microcontroller to communicate over USB, to act as a keyboard. And while this is perphaps one of the better ways to utilize USB, since the small details are taken care of by hardware, there is another way that involves no special hardware, but rather uses firmware to run the USB protocol. And that method is known as the V-USB library. You may decide to use a library like this on devices such as the ATmega328p or more famously, an Arduino UNO, since they don’t have the necessary USB hardware to communicate. There are a few limitations though, which I will talk about during the video. I will also be showing you how the HID protocol works. This is the protocol on top of USB that we will use to run the keyboard. Without any further introduction, let’s start the video.
All of our projects have some sort of output, why else would we make them? This output can be in the form of LEDs or LCD displays. But what about interacting with a computer? Well, the traditional method of doing so is via the serial port. This is the most widely used because of its simplicity. Rewind a few decades, and you will find many more computers with serial ports. But, if you have noticed, those ports have since been replaced by USB. USB has brought massive advantages to the electronics space, most notably for the end user. It is very easy to use, just plug it in and the computer will handle the rest. Much more convenient than the traditional serial devices which had to be manually configured. The only problem is that USB is very complicated considering that the datasheet is over 600 pages long! For this reason, implementing USB is no easy task. Luckily for you, I will be showing you how to implement USB into your electronics projects.
In the previous video in this series, we looked at how microcontrollers interfaced with the outside world, using their I/O ports. And while that is arguably the most important feature of a microcontroller, along with the CPU itself, there are still a lot of features that make working with these microcontrollers a lot easier. Take, for instance, the standard blinking LED example that everyone is familiar with. You simply delay the CPU in order to flash the LED. But what if you wanted to do other things at the same time. That’s where hardware timers come in. They can keep track of time for you, while the CPU is free to do other things. So, how do these timers work, and how can we utilize them? Well, in this video I will show you how a timer like this might work, and how you can use one to run a function every few miliseconds. Let’s get started!