Clik here to view.
An FPGA sprite graphics accelerator with a 180MHz STM32F429 controller and...
A very warm welcome to my most ambitious project to date. In this project I’m going to attempt to design and build a sprite-based graphics accelerator that will function as a co-processor to an MCU....
View ArticleClik here to view.
ST-Link v2. One programmer for all STM32 devices
Over the last few years I’ve amassed quite a collection of STM32 development boards. Third party boards dominate my collection for the F1 series whilst I have official ST discovery boards for the F0,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hacking the HP Z800 Xeon motherboard into a standard case
About four years ago now the company I work for were investing in some new servers for a project that we were working on and what turned up were quad LGA1366 socket Xeons with support for up to 192Gb...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Exploring the KSZ8091RNA RMII ethernet PHY
In my previous two articles (here, here) I’ve provided schematics and Gerbers for a breakout board that supports the Micrel KSZ8051MLL ethernet PHY. The KSZ8051MLL is an MII PHY manufactured in a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
PCB soldermask colours: which one should you choose?
I’m sure that all electronics hobbyists have, by now, noticed that anyone can get their PCBs printed at the online Chinese services such as Seeed Studio, ITead Studio and Elecrow. Many of you will have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
GPS Disciplined Oscillator review and teardown
You may recall that about a year ago I built a frequency counter based on an FPGA and an Android user interface. I called it Nanocounter and you can read about it here if you haven’t already done so....
View ArticleClik here to view.
A high current power supply built around a server voltage regulator
Regular readers of this blog will have already seen the article that I published about 4 months ago where I attempted to reverse engineer a voltage regulator module originally designed to fit into a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A laser-cut acrylic case for my server power supply controller
In my last article I built a controller board around the Artesyn NXA66 server power supply module that I picked up very cheaply on ebay. This board gave me the ability to control the key functions of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Process automation: building a process controller
Not a lot of people know this, but I brew my own beer as a hobby; and I’m not talking about the murky coloured astringent tasting dodgy brews of yesteryear. The beer I brew is probably best described...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Process automation: relays and triacs
In my previous article I discussed how I intended to convert an old PC into a controller that I could use to automate the temperature control required to ferment and conditional beer. If you haven’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Process automation: temperature sensing
My previous article documented how I designed and built a PCB that hosted three relays and a triac that could be mounted inside a PC case and connected up via the USB bus for host control using simple...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Process automation: another RTD sensor board
In a previous article I described the design and build of a temperature sensor board based around a high precision LTC2986 part from Linear Technology. The project was successful so you may be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Directly driving a 7-segment LED display with the STM32
Seven segment LEDs are an extremely cost effective way to add a large, bright and very readable numeric display to your project. Displays similar to the one pictured above can be had for as little as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to use a 4k TV as a computer monitor
I like big, high resolution monitors. The bigger the better. I can’t understand how so many young developers and engineers seem to be content to peer into the tiny screens on their Macbooks that offer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A development board for an STM32G081 MCU
I’ve been an avid user of ST’s F0 series ever since it was launched. The 48MHz Cortex M0 is almost always the perfect MCU for every project that I tend to build and it’s so easy to program and debug...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A USB microphone for online meetings
Here in the UK the new reality of working in the IT business over the past year has been that we’re all at home working remotely over virtual desktop connections and for someone engaged in software...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fixing the USB microphone mute button click
In my previous article I documented the design and build process of my USB microphone based around an STM32F446 MCU. If you haven’t already read it then it’s probably worth catching up now before...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bluetooth Low Energy and the STM32WB55 MCU
I’m a subscriber to ST’s regular email newsletter and though most of it isn’t interesting to me I did notice that in one of the recent editions they were promoting their wireless range of STM32-based...
View Article