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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
As most of you know, cryptocurrency mining has been quite popular over the past several years. And following that trend, my brother put together a mining computer. After ethereum’s switch to proof-of-stake, the older mining methods no longer work, which is what my brother was doing. So he had to switch to other coins like ergo and flux. The problem now is that these coins earn less than Ethereum used to.
This video is the second part to a series about building a function generator. If you haven’t seen the first part, I recommend that you do that first so that you know why the design we have currently is the way that it is. It is linked in the description. The first part covers using a microcontroller and a DAC to generate an output waveform. In this video, we will make the waveform centered around zero volts and allow the user to alter the amplitude.
When I was browsing a local antique store, I found this pretty old, but interseting radio. Apparently, it is very useful for emergency situations, since you don’t need to plug it in or even bring your own batteries. That is because you can charge it up in three different ways. First, you can leave it outside to charge using the solar panel when it is sunny outside. You can also crank this shaft, which is a dyanmo generator.