All About Circuits

Latest Technical Articles

Categories

Incorporating Wireless Power with IDT’s Tx/Rx Reference Kits

Incorporating Wireless Power with IDT’s Tx/Rx Reference Kits

Two evaluation boards from IDT help you to quickly and conveniently integrate wireless power into your designs.


Projects Oct 15, 2015 by Robert Keim
How To Build A Thermostat with a PICAXE

How To Build A Thermostat with a PICAXE

An inexpensive PICAXE microcontroller makes it easy to read a temperature sensor, compare the temperature to a setpoint, and turn a heater or cooler circuit on or off.


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
An Intro to Power Systems and Reactive Power

An Intro to Power Systems and Reactive Power

A brief introduction on some of the technical aspects and theories about power systems.


Choosing and Using Ferrite Beads

Choosing and Using Ferrite Beads

This article provides practical guidance on using ferrite beads to improve your PCB’s power quality.


Build Your Own Time-Domain Reflectometer

Build Your Own Time-Domain Reflectometer

Build your own TDR out of a scope and a signal generator to troubleshoot long cable runs and impedance mismatches.


Hack a Mousetrap with a 433MHz RF Module

Hack a Mousetrap with a 433MHz RF Module

You can buy cheap 433MHz RF modules from Mouser and DigiKey. This article will show you how to use them with a PICAXE microcontroller to hack your own mousetraps.


Raspberry Pi Project: Control a DC Fan

Raspberry Pi Project: Control a DC Fan

Control a fan based on the current temperature with a Raspberry Pi!


Make a BLE Temperature Sensor with the nRF51

Make a BLE Temperature Sensor with the nRF51

This article demonstrates how to use the built-in die temperature sensor on the nRF51. The die temperature is not the same as ambient temperature, but can be calibrated to ambient temperature by using a correction factor.


An Introduction to Freescale’s Kinetis Design Studio

An Introduction to Freescale’s Kinetis Design Studio

Jump start your embedded projects with Freescale's new software platform!


Projects Oct 04, 2015 by Nash Reilly
How to Build a Real-Time Clock with a PICAXE

How to Build a Real-Time Clock with a PICAXE

Teaming up a PICAXE µC, a DS1307 real time clock module, and an LCD117 serial adapter with a liquid crystal display is a fun, educational way to assemble your own date and time demo.


Learn About Thevenin Theorem and Dependent Source Circuits

Learn About Thevenin Theorem and Dependent Source Circuits

Learn all about Thevenin's Theorem and its application in analyzing circuits with dependent sources.


A Builder’s Guide to Buying Electronics on eBay

A Builder’s Guide to Buying Electronics on eBay

It's never been cheaper to round up a ton of quality hardware for open source projects! Here's what you need to know about the eBay experience.


Learning to Simplify: Thevenin and Norton Equivalent Circuits

Learning to Simplify: Thevenin and Norton Equivalent Circuits

This article reviews the basics of finding Thevenin and Norton equivalents and discusses how to apply Thevenin's theorem to a practical circuit.


Clean Power for Every IC, Part 3: Understanding Ferrite Beads

Clean Power for Every IC, Part 3: Understanding Ferrite Beads

Ferrite beads used in conjunction with bypass capacitors can provide improved power-supply filtering and decoupling.


How to Build a Web-based Garage Door Controller

How to Build a Web-based Garage Door Controller

Use your Android device to open and close your garage door! Much better than that clunky remote you've been using.


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
Clean Power for Every IC, Part 2: Choosing and Using Your Bypass Capacitors

Clean Power for Every IC, Part 2: Choosing and Using Your Bypass Capacitors

Proper component selection and careful PCB layout are integral to power supply bypassing.


Your Guide to Home PCB Fabrication

Your Guide to Home PCB Fabrication

Use a program like Kicad and a few cheap or common supplies to fabricate your own PCBs at home. Breadboarding is fine for testing a circuit, but it never looks good to have fifty wires coming out of a circuit.


How to Add Bluetooth to a Ceiling Fan

How to Add Bluetooth to a Ceiling Fan

How to add BLE capabilities to a wireless ceiling fan by incorporating the nRF51 in the remote control. Part of our series on the nRF51.