Microchip Power Electronics Application Notes

I’ve always found application notes to be great places to expand your knowledge and understanding. Microchip have released or rather re-released a handful of power electronics related notes this month:

Advanced IGBT Driver Application Manual
https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en1002313

High Frequency Resonant Half Bridge
https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en1002291

IGBT Tutorial
https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en1002315

Introduction to MOSFETs
https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en1002293

Introduction to Rectifier Bridges and Dual Diodes
https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en1002781

Introduction to Rectifiers
https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en1002294

Latest Technology PT IGBTs vs. Power MOSFETs
https://www.microchip.com/wwwAppNotes/AppNotes.aspx?appnote=en1002316

RC2014 Prototype Board

The Prototype card is one of the very first cards I designed for the RC2014 system.

It’s larger than a normal RC2014 card but that is intentional so you have as much prototyping area as possible for building a circuit.

It features both the classic single row pin-header for the original RC2014 pin-out and also a double row pin-header for the newer enhanced RC2014 bus pin-out.

 

 

You can find them on my Tindie store

Sick of Beige (SoB) board – DB9

Whilst looking to build some breakout boards I remembered the Sick of Beige (SoB) “standard” of PCB footprints designed by Dangerous Prototypes. DP have made a really cool set of PCB footprints in various sizes with the added bonus of being designed to be case friendly.

Dangerous Prototypes have a great page describing the various PCB sizes here:

http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Sick_of_Beige_standard_PCB_sizes_v1.0

My first Sick of Beige (SoB) board is SoB DB9, using the DP5050 footprint. This is a handy little breakout board for those wanting to build their own 9-way D-Type interfaces be it for RS232, RS485, CAN bus or any other project.

A standard 9-way D-Type (Male) connector provides the interface with 3.5mm Screw Terminals connections provided for easy interfacing. In addition a Male Pin Header connections is also provided. Two small circuit prototyping areas are also provided.

Board Details:

– 9-Pin D-Type connector (Male)
– Easy to Connect Headers
– 3.5mm Screw Terminals
– 2.54mm Pin Header
– small circuit prototyping area x2
– Compatible with Sick of Beigh DP5050 footprint
– Board Dimensions: 50 x 50 mm
– 3.2mm Mounting Holes x4

Uses:
– Industrial Control
– Robotics
– Mechatronics

As usual you can find them on my Tindie page here

List of Guitar Effect Pedals sites

I’ve recently been researching guitar effects pedals for a new project, so if you’ve never heard of Big Muff Pi, Arbiter Fuzz Face, Ibanez Tube Screamer or Pro Co Rat, check out the sites below to learn some more:

Big Muff Pi circuit versions
http://www.bigmuffpage.com/Big_Muff_Pi_versions_schematics_part1.html

Technology of the Tube Screamer
http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/tstech/tsxtech.htm

Various effects projects
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/effects-projects
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/how-to-build-it/technical-help/schematics

Great pedal site
http://www.electrosmash.com

French DIY pedals
http://www.coda-effects.com

Fuzz pedals
http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com

More pedal ideas
http://www.GuitarPCB.com

DIY FX’s
http://gaussmarkov.net

Vero (Stripboard) and tagboard effect layouts
http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk

Perf and PCB effects layouts
http://effectslayouts.blogspot.co.uk

Good range of PCB’s
https://aionelectronics.com

More DIY pedal designs
http://www.madbeanpedals.com

Lots of BOSS schematics
http://www.hobby-hour.com/electronics/s/guitar-effect-schematics.php

Great Forum
http://www.diystompboxes.com

stompboxology vintage newsletter
http://www.moosapotamus.net/stompboxology.html

http://www.super-freq.com/

http://diyguitarpedal.com

http://www.tonegeek.com

http://1776effects.com

Parts & Kits
http://www.mammothelectronics.com

New Pi add-on board – RPi Breadboard+ for sale

RPi Breadboard+ is a solderless prototyping breadboard add-on for the Raspberry Pi. Using the breadboard and female to female wires you can quickly prototype and test your electronic design.

A large portion of the add-on is taken up by a 140-pin breadboard and surrounding the breadboard on all four sides are a number female headers.

All of the Raspberry Pi GPIO signals are brought out to two 16-pin female headers located near the top and bottom of the breadboard. 3.3V (5-pin), 5V (5-pin) and 0V/Ground (12-pin) power supplies are also brought out to female headers located to the sides of the breadboard.

The add-on features 3x LED’s (red, yellow and green) and 2x push-button tactile switches each having a 2-pin female header for easy use with the rest of the board.

Size wise it conforms to a standard HAT board size (65 x 56mm) and mounting holes. So its compatible with the Raspberry Pi A+, B+ and Pi2.

There is an EEPROM PCB footprint for future HAT configuration compatibly but its not fitted on this version.

You can find them on Tindie here.

https://www.tindie.com/stores/DTronixs/

R-Kade getting a upgrade

The wiring in my Raspberry Pi mini arcade cabinet is getting a much needed upgrade.

I originally build R-Kade for Maker Faire 2013 and its been at various other Faire’s around the country and at eDay for the last two years. It was quickly build out of a bookshelves, old VGA monitor, WII arcade controller and a raspberry pi. The control board was removed from the WII arcade controller and the joystick and buttons wired directly to a prototyping board on the Pi. Unfortunately, it’s this wiring which is becoming a problem and needs redoing.

Rather than just strip out the wires and rewire new, I decided to make myself a better solution and have designed a Pi ArcadeIO board. The ArcadeIO board has screw terminals for connecting the wires to the Pi’s GPIO signals. In addition the GPIO signals have in-line resistors to limited the effects of any short circuits. There are addition screw terminal positions for connecting common grounds for the arcade switches and joystick.

ESP8266 More Web Links

Some more good ESP web links:

http://41j.com/blog/
http://www.ernstc.dk/arduino/esp8266.html
http://harizanov.com/2014/11/esp8266-powered-web-server-led-control-dht22-temperaturehumidity-sensor-reading/
http://www.extragsm.com/blog/2014/12/03/connect-esp8266-to-raspberry-pi/

ESP8266 Modules & Links

I got very excited when I saw the ESP8266 modules way back in September, a WIFI module for under $5, so I ordered a few ESP-01 and they arrived in due course.

The ESP-01 is great if you just want to add WIFI connectivity to your project, but once I realised you could program the onboard micro I knew I wanted access to the GPIO and other interfaces to make a standalone WIFI I/O node. I didn’t have to wait too long and back in November when I saw the ESP-03 module which breakouts a number of GPIO signals and interfaces to pads on the module. I ordered some and they arrived just before Christmas.

There are now over a dozen different styles (ESP-xx) of ESP8266 modules.

Here’s a few good ESP8266 links:

Espressif – the company that makes the ESP8266 SoC
https://espressif.com/en/products/esp8266/

The ESP community forum
http://www.esp8266.com/
https://github.com/esp8266

Sites with good info. and tutorials
https://nurdspace.nl/ESP8266
http://scargill.wordpress.com/
http://www.electrodragon.com/w/Wi07c
http://www.xess.com/blog/esp8266-is-alive/
http://mcuoneclipse.com/2014/10/15/cheap-and-simple-wifi-with-esp8266-for-the-frdm-board/
http://benlo.com/esp8266/
http://www.limpkin.fr/index.php?post/2014/11/27/A-Development-Board-for-the-ESP8266-03

Raspberry Pi (Beeb) UserPort HAT

Of the recent Pi boards I’ve made I think UserPort is probably my favourite. It’s a mimic of the BBC’s micros digital User Port and Analogue Port.

Back in the 80’s (gosh that sounds old) I built many electronic, robotic and other projects using the Beebs digital User Port and Analogue so reproducing their functionality for the Pi was a pleasure.

Digital I/O is provided by a I2C MCP23017 16-channel Port Expander

20W IDC Connector
1 3.3V
2 CB1
3 3.3V
4 CB2
5 GND
6 PB0
7 GND
8 PB1
9 GND
10 PB2
11 GND
12 PB3
13 GND
14 PB4
15 GND
16 PB5
17 GND
18 PB6
19 GND
20 PB7

Analogue Inputs by a 4-channel SPI MCP3004 10-bit ADC.

15W D Connector

Pin
1 3.3V
2 GND
3 GND
4 ADC CH3
5 GND
6 GND
7 ADC CH1
8 GND
9 N/C
10 I1
11 N/C
12 ADC CH2
13 I0
14 N/C
15 ADC CH0

Check my other stuff on Tindie

RPiB+ Breakout!+

Here’s our first RPiB+ HAT compatible board Breakout!+.