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Make Lighting Easy with Smart LEDs

Make Lighting Easy with Smart LEDs

Smart LEDs are becoming increasingly popular and very inexpensive. It's a great time to pick some up and experiment!


News Jan 01, 2016 by Alex Udanis
What You Should Know About Television Technology

What You Should Know About Television Technology

There are many so competing technologies in televisions, it can quickly become downright confusing. We discuss a handful of them here including 4k / UHD, Framerate, OLED, HDR, Quantum dots, and Quantum LEDs


News Dec 17, 2015 by Arthur Anderson
Design a Luxmeter Using a Light Dependent Resistor

Design a Luxmeter Using a Light Dependent Resistor

Take a few minutes to characterize a light dependent resistor (LDR) and you can build a simple and reasonably accurate light meter can be built using an LDR and an Arduino.


Projects Dec 13, 2015 by David Williams
Build Raspberry Pi Controllers: LED Flasher

Build Raspberry Pi Controllers: LED Flasher

In this project, you'll learn how to wire an LED and flash it using the Raspberry Pi. Also, to isolate the Raspberry Pi's + 3.3VDC compliant output pins from supply voltages greater than this power source, an opto-isolator will be introduced as well.


Projects Dec 11, 2015 by Don Wilcher
Tech in the Art World

Tech in the Art World

There's a fine line between art and tech. Find out what artists are using to create phenomenal modern pieces.


News Dec 09, 2015 by Jennifer A. Diffley
Negative Feedback, Part 8: Analyzing Transimpedance Amplifier Stability

Negative Feedback, Part 8: Analyzing Transimpedance Amplifier Stability

The techniques discussed in previous articles can help us to understand and remedy stability problems observed in a common circuit used to amplify photodiode signals.


Navigating the Boost Converter’s Vulnerability with Alternative Power Conversion Topologies

Navigating the Boost Converter’s Vulnerability with Alternative Power Conversion Topologies

Here are some great power conversion topologies that can be used as alternatives to the boost converter; they are much less vulnerable to short circuit load conditions.


NXP’s Thread Platform Makes Low-Power IoT Design a Cinch

NXP’s Thread Platform Makes Low-Power IoT Design a Cinch

NXP demonstrated its Thread Platform at ARMTechCon last week. Based on the JN5179 wireless MCU, with Secure Element, NFC, Thread encryption, its own dc/dc converter and featuring ARM's mbed OS, the Platform makes secure home automation application design a whole lot easier.


News Nov 19, 2015 by PatrickM
What You Should Know About Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) Technology

What You Should Know About Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) Technology

A thorough explanation of OLED technology and its applications. Like an LED, an OLED is a solid semiconductor device that is 100 to 500 nanometers in length or 200 times smaller than a human hair!


News Nov 09, 2015 by Donald Krambeck
Control Your AC Mains with a Microcontroller

Control Your AC Mains with a Microcontroller

Learn how to put together your own toaster oven controller with a handful of inexpensive, through-hole parts. The emphasis is on safety, low price, and minimal modification of the toaster oven.


Projects Nov 09, 2015 by Patrick Lloyd
Make an Analog Sound Reactive LED Strip

Make an Analog Sound Reactive LED Strip

This analog design allows your LEDs to respond to your music. Just plug your music source into this which sends a channel to your sound system and some LEDs.


Projects Oct 28, 2015 by Fadi Kasem
10 Halloween Costumes Electrical Engineers Can Geek Out About

10 Halloween Costumes Electrical Engineers Can Geek Out About

Halloween's almost here! Freaking out about having nothing to wear? Grab an Arduino and lose your inhibitions-- here comes the costume breakdown.


News Oct 28, 2015 by Jennifer A. Diffley
Make an LED Light Strip AHRS with Arduino and MPU-6050

Make an LED Light Strip AHRS with Arduino and MPU-6050

Use a WS2812 RGB LED strip to visualize the pose of an MPU-6050 6-degree-of-freedom IMU in three dimensional space.


Projects Oct 13, 2015 by Patrick Lloyd
Light Bar “Relative Comfort” Thermometer with NodeMCU

Light Bar “Relative Comfort” Thermometer with NodeMCU

Create a wireless "relative comfort" light bar thermometer by broadcasting temperature data across multiple ESP8266 modules running NodeMCU using MQTT.


Projects Sep 28, 2015 by Patrick Lloyd
Ambient Light Monitor: Using a Triac to Adjust Lamp Brightness

Ambient Light Monitor: Using a Triac to Adjust Lamp Brightness

Part 5 in the “How to Make an Ambient Light Monitor” series.


Projects Sep 01, 2015 by Robert Keim
Ambient Light Monitor: Zero-Cross Detection

Ambient Light Monitor: Zero-Cross Detection

Part 4 in the “How to Make an Ambient Light Monitor” series


Projects Aug 16, 2015 by Robert Keim
Ambient Light Monitor: Understanding and Implementing the ADC

Ambient Light Monitor: Understanding and Implementing the ADC

Part 2 in the "How to Make an Ambient Light Monitor" Series. Our smart ambient light monitor will need to digitize and analyze signals from an optical detector, so it is time to explore the EFM8’s integrated analog-to-digital conversion functionality.


Projects Aug 05, 2015 by Robert Keim
Ambient Light Monitor: Measuring and Interpreting Ambient Light Levels

Ambient Light Monitor: Measuring and Interpreting Ambient Light Levels

Part 3 in the “How to Make an Ambient Light Monitor” series. The project continues by building an ambient light sensor circuit on a breadboard, digitizing the circuit’s output signals, and interpreting the digitized measurements.


Projects Aug 05, 2015 by Robert Keim
Ambient Light Monitor: Display Measurements on an LCD

Ambient Light Monitor: Display Measurements on an LCD

Learn how to use an EFM8 microcontroller to convert current and voltage measurements to digits that can be displayed on an LCD. We'll discuss a convenient way to report analog-to-digital conversion values that represent current and voltage amplitudes.


Projects Jul 26, 2015 by Robert Keim
8-bit MCUs get a Boost From Microchip

8-bit MCUs get a Boost From Microchip

The new 8-bit families have Core-Independent Peripherals, which allow the MCUs to be used in a much larger variety of interconnected CIPs that don't require a core to perform. The CIPs increase system performance with simple design and a 1.8 to 5.5V operating range.


News Jul 20, 2015 by Jennifer A. Diffley