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An interrupt is a process of forcing a microcontroller to temporarily suspend the current job and perform a higher priority task. Once the new request is served, the micrcontroller resumes the original task. Interrupts are powerful tools in embedded system design, and special cares must be taken while implementing them. This tutorial teaches how to use an external and pin change interrupts on an AVR microcontroller. Read
Read moreTimers are vital in embedded systems design. Timer module inside a microcontroller can be used to measure time interval, generate exact duration pulse, count external pulses, etc. Their proper use could reduce the overall consumption of available resources. This tutorial from Protostack teaches you about the 8 and 16 bit timers on an ATmega168 microcontroller. The concept of Timer is fundamental and is similar with other microcontrollers too. Read
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There are many ways to determine the capacitance of a capacitor. You can use an oscillating circuit where the capacitor is a part of it and measure the frequency of oscillation to find the capacitance. Or, you can also use a resistor-capacitor network and measure the rate of voltage rise across the capacitor to determine the capacitance, if the value of the resistor is known. Here’s a similar project where a PIC16F88 microcontroller measures the time required by a capacitor to charge through a known resistor from 0 to half of the reference voltage provided, and the capacitance is determined
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HD44780 based LCD displays are very popular for embedded projects because they are cheap, easy to interface, can display characters, consume power lot less than seven-segment displays, and most of the present day compilers have in-built library routines for them. However, the only disadvantage is that they require at least 6 I/O pins of microcontroller. Well, you may ask, isn’t that less than what seven-segment displays require? Yes, that’s true but there are circumstances where you don’t have left enough pins for LCD display. For example, if you are going to design a temperature sensor based on a PIC12F683 microcontroller,
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Digital Thermometer using PIC Microchip
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