Category Archives: Tutorials


Hookup guide for 16×32 RGB LED panel – Part 1

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RGB LED panels are a great way of displaying colorful texts, images, and animation. In this 3-part tutorial, I am going to demonstrate how to hookup our 16×32 RGB LED panel kit to an Arduino Uno board and run some demo sketches. Our 16×32 RGB LED matrix panel kit includes everything you need to connect it to an Arduino Uno board. The kit includes: One 16×32 RGB LED matrix panel One RGB connector shield for Arduino Uno One IDC cable to connect the RGB matrix panel to the RGB shield One power supply connector for the RGB matrix Note that the power supply

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STM32’s internal RTC

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A Real Time Clock (RTC) is a timing element dedicated for keeping time. In many applications, especially where precise timed-operations are needed to be performed, a RTC is a very useful tool. Examples of such applications apart from clocks and watches include washing machines, medicine dispensers, data loggers, etc. Basically a RTC is a timer-counter but unlike other timers of a MCU it is much more accurate. Previous to this post, we explored STM32 timers but those were useful for applications like PWM generation, time-bases and other waveform-related tasks. Those were not suitable for precise time-keeping. In most 8-bit MCUs

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XMega DAC

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In embedded systems, oftentimes it is needed to generate analog outputs from a microcontroller. Examples of such include, generating audio tones, voice, music, smooth continuous waveforms, function generators, voltage reference generators, etc. Traditionally in such cases the most common techniques applied are based on Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), resistor networks and external Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) chips like MCP4921. The aforementioned techniques have different individual limitations and moreover require external hardware interfacing, adding complexities and extra cost to projects.  XMega micros are equipped with 12 bit fast DACs apart from PWM blocks and again it proves itself to be a very

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STM32 Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC)

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After having played with Analogue-to-Digital Converter (ADC) of STM32 micros, the obvious next internal hardware block to deal with is the Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC). As the name suggests this block has just the complementary function of ADC. It converts digital binary values to analogue voltage outputs. The DAC block has several uses including audio generation, waveform generation, etc. Typically in most 8-bit micros, this block is unavailable and its need is somewhat loosely met with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) block. This is partly because of their relatively less hardware resources and operating speeds. All STM32 micros also have PWM blocks

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STM32 Analogue-to-Digital Converter (ADC)

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Most of us who have experienced 8-bit MCUs previously know how much important it is to have an Analogue-to-Digital Converter (ADC) built-in with a microcontroller. Apart from other hardware extensions unavailable in the early era microcontrollers, many former 8051 microcontroller users shifted primarily to more robust Atmel AVRs and Microchip PICs just for this important peripheral. I don’t feel it necessary to restate the advantages of having such a peripheral embedded in a micro. In traditional 8-bit MCUs aforementioned, the ADC block is somewhat incomplete and users have to work out tricky methods to solve certain problems. The ADC block

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