Author Archives: R-B

High Resolution RGB LED Color Mixing

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This application note demonstrates color mixing using the PIC12F1572 MCU. The PIC12F1572 microcontroller features three 16-bit pulse-width modulators (PWMs), which allow precise control over each RGB LED, allowing smooth transitions even at low-brightness/luminosity levels.

RGB LED color mixer demonstration

RGB LED color mixer demonstration

Development efforts are supported by the following features of this demonstration board.

• ICSP™ programming connector
• EUSART bus tie-in points
• USB or battery powered
• Multiple test points

A color mixing software routine allows developers to specify colors in xyY format with the PIC® device performing color mixing calculations.

Snow weighing scale

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Snowfall is typically measured in inches. However, when it comes to shoveling snow off the driveway, your would probably like to know how dense the snow has accumulated because that is what going to determine how much effort and time you will need to complete the task. This instructable shows how to modify a simple digital weighing scale to construct a snow monitoring scale which could be a nice addition to your DIY weather station.

Snow measuring scale

Snow measuring scale

 

Breakout module for Si7005 temperature and humidity sensor

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The Si7005 is a digital relative humidity and temperature sensor from Silicon Labs. It integrates fully factory-calibrated humidity and temperature sensor elements with an analog to digital converter, signal processing and an I2C host interface in a single monolithic CMOS sensor IC. The Si7005 is available in a “non hand-assembly-friendly” 4×4 mm QFN package, which requires reflow soldering to mount it on a PCB. This breadboard friendly breakout board is designed to make your prototype project with the Si7005 sensor much easier. It can be used with PIC, Arduino, or any other microcontroller development platform through an I2C bus. The power supply and I2C signal pins are accessible through breadboard friendly 0.1″ pitch header pins. Note that the Si7005 sensor is not 5.0V tolerant. It must be operated at 2.1-3.6V power supply.

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Si7005 breakout board

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Product review: iCP12 usbStick and SmartDAQ

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In this blog post, I am reviewing iCircuit Technologies’ iCP12 usbStick development board and their freely downloadable SmartDAQ PC software. These two can be bundled together to construct a very basic 6-channel (analog) PC data logger.

iCP12: PIC18F2550 USB board

iCP12: PIC18F2550 USB board

The iCP12 usbStick is a PIC18F2550 based USB development board that comes preloaded with Microchip’s USB HID bootloader that allows users to upload an application firmware directly through a PC’s USB port without any external programmer. It provides access to its I/O pins through 0.1″ pitch headers. A slide switch is also provided on board to select the operation of the board in Bootloader or Normal mode. The iCP12 usbStick board is shipped with a preloaded data acquisition firmware (HEX file is also downloadable) that emulates as a virtual COM port to PC. Thereafter, the communication between the PC and usbStick is serial. The firmware also supports basic I/O control and data logging feature. They provide a PC application named SmartDAQ that is specially developed to communicate with the usbStick (data acquisition firmware must be loaded) and control its I/O pins, PWM outputs, and record ADC inputs. Read more

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