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Integrating Wiznet W5100, WIZ811MJ network module with Atmel AVR Microcontroller

July 31, 2010 by rwb, under Microcontroller.

The rapid penetration of the internet networks into many of today’s modern homes and personal gadgets (e.g. smart phone and smart pads) opening a tremendous useful and interesting embedded system application that could be integrated into our house or known as the intelligent house. For example by putting a small embedded system web server in our house, we could easily monitor such as alarm, temperature or even turn on/off the lamp or the garden’s water sprinkle; eventually from any remote location through the wireless personal gadget; Or perhaps you just want to impress your relative or friend with a very accurate digital clock which automatically synchronized the time through the Network Time Protocol (NTP) over the internet at your home or office. (more…)

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Stepping Into the 16-bit World with the Microchip 16-bit PIC24F16KA102 Family Microcontroller

May 31, 2010 by rwb, under Microcontroller.

One of the commonly asked questions when we move to the bigger and powerful 16-bit microcontroller is do we really need it? As the 8-bit microcontroller is already suite almost all of our needs from a simple blinking LED to more sophisticated embedded application such as robotics. Despite the debate whether to use the 8-Bit or 16-Bit microcontroller or perhaps just go straight to 32-bit microcontroller in our embedded system design, first I will show you the Microchip PIC18F25J11 (8-Bit) and PIC24F16KA102 (16-bit) basic comparison. (more…)

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Building your own Simple Laser Projector using the Microchip PIC12F683 Microcontroller

April 13, 2010 by rwb, under Microcontroller.

The 8 pins PIC12F683 microcontroller is one of the smallest members of the Microchip 8-bit microcontroller families but equipped with powerful peripherals such as ADC and PWM capabilities. This make this tiny microcontroller is suitable for controlling the DC motor speed. In order to demonstrate the PIC12F683 capabilities and to make this tutorial more attractive, I decided to use the PIC12F683 microcontroller to generate simple and yet fascinating laser light show from a cheap keychain laser pointer. (more…)

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Working with the Comparator Circuit

March 15, 2010 by rwb, under Electronics.

Sometimes in the embedded system world we need to process the analog world and sending the signal to the microcontroller when the analog signal exceed some predetermine limit we’ve set. Some example of this situation is to send the interrupt signal to the microcontroller operation when the temperature is already exceeds certain limit or the light intensity exceeds certain bright level. This is when the comparator circuit becomes handy as it’s designed specially for this purpose. (more…)

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Build Your Own Simple and Easy PICAXE Microcontroller Based Photovore Robot

February 4, 2010 by rwb, under Robotics.

Building a simple and easy microcontroller based robot is always a fascinating topic to be discussed, especially for the robotics newbie enthusiast. On this tutorial I will show you how to build your own microcontroller based robot which known as a photovore or you could call it as the light chaser robot using the simplest possible circuit for the microcontroller based robot brain, locomotion motor and the sensor. (more…)

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Make your own Microcontroller Printed Circuit Board (PCB) using the Toner Transfer Method

January 3, 2010 by rwb, under Electronics.

As the electronics hobbyist one of knowledge that we have to be familiar with is how to make our own printed circuit board (PCB). Making our own simple single side PCB actually is not require a sophisticated technique and technology as you might think, instead most of the required materials is already available at your home. I’ve started make my first single side through-hole PCB for a simple two transistors astable multivibrator project using just a water proof marker and draw the PCB layout directly on the PCB copper surface. (more…)

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The 2009 Year End Notes

December 18, 2009 by rwb, under Blognote.

First of all I would like to thank to all the ermicroblog readers. I started to write this blog about a year ago; precisely on December 2008, during this year I received a lot of comments and questions and some of it were on my email. For me there are no such a silly questions as I believe that as long as we live in this world we always in the continues learning mode state, therefore what seems silly to some people actually is a really serious question to the other people. I would do my best to answer all the questions regarding this blog contents; as answering the people’s question also is a part of the learning process. (more…)