Tutorials

As the name indicates they are circular in shape and the pin contacts are arranged inside the periphery of the circular outer covering. Different[[wysiwyg_imageupload::]]standard and variety of circular connectors are available in which some of them are designed for signal transmission only, some designed for power only and some of them are designed for both signal and power. We will be discussing some of the circular connectors in detail, including RF Coaxial, CPC, DIN and XLR. 

AT commands are used to control MODEMs. AT is the abbreviation for Attention. These commands come from Hayes commands that were used by the Hayes smart modems. The Hayes commands started with AT to indicate the attention from the MODEM. The dial up and wireless MODEMs (devices that involve machine to machine communication) need AT…

Note: it’s recommended to follow this VHDL tutorial series in order, starting with the first tutorial. In the previous tutorial, VHDL tutorial – 14, we designed two circuits using VHDL: a 1×8 de-multiplexer and a 8×1 multiplexer. In this project, we will, Write a VHDL program to build a clocked SR Latch (flip-flop) circuit Verify the…

In the previous tutorial VHDL tutorial, we designed 8×3 encoder and 3×8 decoder circuits using VHDL. (If you are not following this VHDL tutorial series one by one, you are requested to go through all previous tutorials of these series before going ahead in this tutorial) In this tutorial, We shall write a VHDL program…

In the previous tutorial VHDL tutorial, we designed an 8-bit parity generator and 8-bit parity checker circuits using VHDL. (If you are not following this VHDL tutorial series one by one, you are requested to go through all previous tutorials of these series before going ahead in this tutorial) In this tutorial, We shall write…

Note: it’s recommended to follow this VHDL tutorial series in order, starting with the first tutorial. In the previous tutorial VHDL tutorial – 11, we learned how to design half and full-subtractor circuits by using the VHDL. In this tutorial, we will: Write a VHDL program to build an 8-bit parity generator and checker circuits Verify…

Note: it’s recommended to follow this VHDL tutorial series in order, starting with the first tutorial. In the previous tutorial VHDL Tutorial – 9, we learned how to build digital circuits from given Boolean equations.  In this tutorial, we will: Write a VHDL program to build half and full-adder circuits.   Verify the output waveform of the…

Note: it’s recommended to follow this VHDL tutorial series in order, starting with the first tutorial. In previous tutorial VHDL tutorial – 10, we had designed half and full-adder circuits using VHDL. In this tutorial, we will: Write a VHDL program to build half and full-subtractor circuits Verify the output waveform of program (digital circuit) with…

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is now a common and vast framework for serial communication. The interface not only allows serial communication, it also works as electronic power supply. The popular AVR microcontrollers fortunately have the USB interface feature and can be programmed to build USB devices. The USB specification is long and intimidating. It can be a daunting task to write a device specific USB driver.

While working on electronics and searching many tools and modules to work on , we have always been looking for some wireless module which can perform few operations on its own and do not need any extra micro controller for that . Have you had the same thought ?  While searching for latest RF technologies ,we got to heard about the NRF24LE1 modules . After working on it at EG Labs ,  we found that it is a very interesting module and every electronics hobbyist must give it a try once in their electronics projects.NRF24LE1 is a 14 pin module, manufactured by Nordic Semiconductors Ltd. The main thing which left us awestruck is that the module has inbuilt 8051 based Microcontroller . This means we can code this module as per our need .

We have studied about the first program on the NRF module which was very simple and we have been successful in blinking the LED.Now, if we wish to make anything with NRF, we must know how to take analog inputs as most of the sensor is analog. In this article, we will see how to use the inbuilt ADC of NRF and how we can use any analog sensor and convert its value into digitalThe specifications we have extracted from the datasheet. Now to understand the code, we have taken an excerpt from the example codes provided by Nordic. Let’s understand the main part of code line by line.

In our daily life we get distracted or interrupted by others many times. In that condition we suspend our ongoing work and pay attention to what others have to say. We only resume our previously suspended work after the completion of the interrupted task. The master which controls the processing of thoughts in us is our brain. The brain stops processing ongoing thoughts when we get interrupted and starts processing the other task. It resumes the previous ongoing processing when the task is complete. The controller works in a similar manner. Here, we will study interrupts associated with our NRF.

Nowadays most of our devices are portable and run on batteries. We often do not know when the battery is about to get discharged. Many systems have the battery voltage display to indicate the battery voltage but what if we don’t have the display in our system. In such a case, using a small LED to indicate low battery is very helpful for users to know about the battery status.

All the good and bad incidents are stored in the brain memory of humans. Similarly, the controller uses EEPROM to save data or variables. In this article, we will see how to use the EEPROM of NRF24LE1 and what are its uses?Do you know what makes the memory in electronics? Let’s take an example of a capacitor. It has the capability to hold voltage and thus it’s treated as memory component. There are two types of memories in electronics; Volatile and non-volatile. The volatile one gets erased if the power supplied to this memory is cut. That means the data stored will be erased in case of power failure. The non-volatile has an advantage of holding data even when the power is off. The most common example of volatile memory is the RAM used in our computers. The examples of volatile memory are hard disk, SD cards, EEPROM, etc

Have you ever thought that the phone light, when turned ON, is not always ON? It fluctuates with a frequency to save some energy which our eyes can’t sense. It’s a cool thing to save some battery but how is this done? The answer is PWM. PWM is an important technique for producing analog voltages using digital voltages and controlling LEDs, DC, servo motor, etc. The time period of the generated wave will be the sum of delay for HIGH pulse and delay for LOW pulse. Reciprocal of time will give us frequency of the produced signal.

After discussing the features and architecture of USB, let’s move on to its protocol. A USB interface has several layers of protocol. Most of the time the lower level layers are single handled by host controller IC while the end designer needs to work on higher level layers. Every communication protocol involves the exchange of packets. Same is the case with USB. These packets encapsulate information in a standard-defined organized manner. These packets generally contain information related to- Controlling the data exchange, Data exchange in the form of actual payload, and Error detection and correction through the status check up. In USB the LSB of the packet is transmitted first. A USB packet contains different fields.

In the previous article of this series, USB Descriptors were discussed. When a USB peripheral is connected to a host device, the host sends queries in the form of requests. The peripheral responds by sending Descriptors. The Descriptors contain the information required for identifying and configuring the peripheral device, implementing the interfaces and setting endpoints. The device descriptor is the first descriptor sent to the host and it helps in configuring the peripheral with respect to the host. The subsequent descriptors implement the functioning, the peripheral is meant for. The Control Transfer is the only transfer type which is supported even when the device is yet not configured. That is the reason, it is used for sending requests and obtaining the descriptors. The default endpoint is endpoint 0 which is bidirectional and used for control transfers.

This tutorial  will help you to understand the necessity of the PCB. Here, I have described the evolution of PCB in different steps. Connecting a circuit without any soldering gun or breadboard is a complex process. I tried to connect an amplifier circuit with a transistor, four resistors, and three capacitors, which you can see in the video.

If we connect different electronics components directly with wire or their leads, we have to face a lot of problems like, loose connection, problems in troubleshooting, low reliability, low durability etc. Also if we try to move it from one place to other, we may lose the connections due to no physical support. The only solution to avoid these all problems is “PCB”.PCB:PCB stands for “Printed circuit board”. In this, wire connections printed as copper tracks. It can provide physical support to the circuit. It can avoid loose connections, and testing and troubleshooting the circuit may become also simple. 

KiCad is free software suit for EDA (Electronic design automation), which was created in 1992 by Jean-pierre charras. It has GNU and GPL licenses. I have selected KiCad software to explain PCB tutorials. Since it is open source software, anyone can try this and practice my tutorials. Work-flow:Before  getting started with KiCad, we must know about some basics and work flow of KiCad. In this tutorial, I am going to explain KiCad work flow, step by step. Please follow the same procedure when working with KiCad.