Project Solutions (2011/07/31)

Remote Control for Your PC: With a home-made infrared receiver （1）

Published:2011/7/31 22:57:00 Author:Li xiao na

By Harry Baggen With the PC seeing increasing use as a multimedia machine, recording and playing back video and audio, users will soon want to control a number of functions remotely, just as with their TV or hi-fi set. All you need to realize this is a standard infra-red remote control unit, a homebrew receiver circuit and some software. (View)

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Electronic Valentine Heart: LEDs are red my dear（3）

Published:2011/7/31 22:20:00 Author:Li xiao na

Design by F. Wolling Printed circuit board and construction The printed circuit board designed for the project is single-sided. The 3-mm holes in it enables the LED faces to be seen from the front side. For this to work the LEDs have to be inserted from the solder side of the board, their terminals being cut, bent and then soldered to the copper pads on the board. The other three ...   (View)

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Electronic Valentine Heart: LEDs are red my dear（2）

Published:2011/7/31 22:12:00 Author:Li xiao na

Design by F. Wolling Circuit and component calculations As most of you will know, there are few, if any, applications of LEDs that do not include some form of current limiting resistor. After all, LEDs are simply diodes that light when a forward bias voltage is applied across them. They also ’exhibit’ the typical diode characteristic shown in Figure 1. If you apply a slowly rising v...   (View)

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Trends in Microcontroller （4）

Published:2011/7/31 21:25:00 Author:Phyllis

By Christian Tavernier Most programmers now prefer C or BASIC over assembler For the 8051 family there is, among others, a special Bascom version from MCS, and SDCC, a free C compiler. Only the Motorola products suffer from a sparse availability of compilers, since the amount on offer is absolutely minimal. Accepting the fact that most software developers often use identical...   (View)

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Trends in Microcontroller （3）

Published:2011/7/31 21:06:00 Author:Phyllis

By Christian Tavernier Applications Especially in cars, the use of microcontrollers is becoming increasingly important. This has resulted in manufacturers not only integrating CAN-bus controllers on their chips but the microcontrollers themselves are becoming more advanced. This is the case, for example, with the 18F2332 from Microchip, which can operate at 40 MHz. The same is true ...   (View)

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Trends in Microcontroller （2）

Published:2011/7/31 21:00:00 Author:Phyllis

By Christian Tavernier The rfPIC or ’radio’ PIC In the area of ’small’ microcontrollers it is Microchip who steals the show. Now that microcontrollers are becoming more common in remote controls, Microchip has decided to offer the rfPIC, literally the radio frequency PIC. This one is part of the small PIC-family that we discussed just before. In a single package, the rfPIC c...   (View)

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Trends in Microcontroller （1）

Published:2011/7/31 20:56:00 Author:Phyllis

By Christian Tavernier AN ABUNDANCE OF CHOICE The number of different microcontrollers on offer just keeps on growing. Nearly every single week a new product appears on the market. Choosing the right microcontroller for a particular design is becoming increasingly more difficult. Reason enough to appraise the latest developments. 16-bit devices appear to be old ha...   (View)

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Wireless USB （2）

Published:2011/7/31 20:42:00 Author:Phyllis

By Thomas Biel The Cypress wireless USB family is already in production (since 2003). It uses the 2.4-GHz band, which is available for use without licensing in most countries, while the frequency range preferred by Intel and the MBOA (3.1-10.6 GHz) can be expected to encounter problems with licensing, as it is often used for military purposes in Europe. Cypress offers a variety o...   (View)

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Wireless USB （1）

Published:2011/7/31 20:33:00 Author:Phyllis

By Thomas Biel Conventional USB has certainly become an indispensable feature of everybody’s desk. It is used to connect scanners, cameras, hard disks, sound systems and webcams after the initial installation, and the PC or laptop can remain switched on while the cables are connected or disconnected. This is naturally all very convenient, but the drawback is the large number of cables attac...   (View)

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