A teaser from Misusage (who made the awesome TileToys a few years ago)…a cute circuit idea to automate knob tweaking! Microcontroller + digital pot + glue = MemPot, a speed-adjustable programmable ‘memory’ potentiometer. Seen here manipulating a modded x0xb0x, yum!

See more videos and DIY instructions (soon, I hope)

Looks like Atmel is doing a promotion. I paid $79 for my STK500. Now you’d get 2 top-of-the-line microcontroller dev boards for less than the price of one. Super useful for those strange times when you need to do some HV programming or want to prototype something fast!

AVRDEVKIT1-ND from DigiKey, its not in stock right now but looks like you can backorder it and it’ll ship in a few days.

(Read more at the AVRfreaks forum)

If the mass media are to be believed, there is nothing more useful to today’s heroes-in-training than bomb-defusing know-how.

Blue wire? Green wire? All wires? Once you figure all that stuff out you’ll want to carry around a pocket bomb defusing tool. Where to get such a thing? Well, you are in luck! We have them in stock right now at the Adafruit webshop

So now that you have a fun kit from one of the many reputable electronic kit makers, you are wondering “what soldering iron should I get?”

A fine question, grasshopper! And one that I can easily answer…I have researched three “kits” of tools for amateur electronics hobbyists: The $60 basic kit, $115 better kit, and the $275 best kit.

Mix & Match soldering irons, multimeters and wire cutters to get the set that fits you best.

Click “Read the rest…” to see the full “basic kit” as of this moment (it won’t be updated so be sure to bookmark http://www.ladyada.net/library/equipt-kits.html instead )
(more…)

I’ve decided to experiment with the Wiki architecture for dynamic/collaborative documentation. For my kits and projects, wiki’s make less sense than forums, but a lot of people email me with resources so the “parts procurement” page that has been so popular that I’ve turned it into embedded content.

Now when you have a suggestion for a company to sample from, you can just edit the wiki yourself!

Nothin’ brings out the best in microcontroller design like a $5K grand prize.

This Dog Seizure meter only took honorable mention, but the best thing about all these projects is that they are somewhat documented! (When they work at all)

http://www.circuitcellar.com/avr2006/winners.htm

People on the ladyada.net forums have all sorts of projects they work on. Mike Witt wanted to measure capacitance but his meter doesn’t have a C measurement mode.
However, he remembered that in 555 timers, the frequency is dependent on capacitance so he whipped up this super-simple capacitance meter. Initially I suggested going with the AC waveform method but this is probably just as good and much easier. Just vary R1 and R2 to get different frequency ranges for measurements

(I forgot to add values, R2 and R1 are both 1k ohm
Q is the output, that’s what I hook to my scope.

C_HI is the high end of the cap (if you want to test a polarized cap)
C_LO is the low end. –these don’t matter on standard ceramic caps

Vcc should be between 5-9v, but can be up to 15v safely. 5v is a good TTL level.
To find out C, use the equation C=t/R (from t=RC)
Since my scope only gives frequency, I substitute t=1/freq
We know R (R=r1+r2), so we get
C=t/2000
In my test case, I get freq=2.25676kHz
that means that freq=2256.76Hz
So…
C=(1/2256.76)/2000
~0.00044/2000
~.00000022155 F
~.22 uF

The Cap I used was labeled 224J, which makes it a .22uF +/-10%

Many multi-meters have frequency counting too

Read more about it on the forums

Ziemaginations designed a Mintyboost-derived USB charger except he used a different chip. The MAX1675 is more efficient (up to 95%!) and can also provide more current for those high-powered devices

For an upcoming project I need a variable clock source: up to 50MHz and as low as 10KHz. So I looked up VXCOs, PLLs, DDSs, etc etc. all not quite what I wanted.
And then I found this, the LTC6903, 1KHz-68MHz SPI (or I2C) programmable oscillator, 8 pins, <0.5% error, no crystal (?!). Theres also a resistor-controlled family (LT1933 in SOT23-5). This is the coolest thing ever!

Check out this kinky "typical app"

As Javaman says, “its like a monk that can control his own heartrate”

Congrats LTC690x, you are the Chip of the Week!

OMG this is the best thing ever. DigiKey has upgraded their site and fixed every annoying thing

• you can now search both through catalog sections and attributes at the same time
• the stupid “in stock” button is now an attribute so you dont have to start all over if you want to check both in and out of stock parts
• got rid of the ‘catalog info’ page: all on one screen
• images (sometimes) of the parts - sweet!
• still nice and clean

They still haven’t fixed

• Search/order by price. So I have to do it by hand, which sucks.
• McMaster-Carry style - flip between catagory searches (for specific parts searches) and catalogpage (to get a sense of whats available) views. So I will have to keep my paper catalog on hand.

Now that Mouser has just caught up with Old Digikey, what will they do next? And will Jameco ever not suck?