Build an electric guitar tuner using Arduino

Check this latest instructable on making an Arduino guitar tuner. The audio signal from an electric guitar is amplified and fed to an ADC channel of Arduino, which further processes the signal to extract the major frequency component in the audio. Based on the detected frequency, an LED lights up to show the note of the audio. Besides, it also indicates whether the string being played is sharp, flat, or in tune.

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Code optimization tricks for AVR microcontrollers

Using high-level language compilers such as C greatly improves the development efficiency of microcontroller-based products. But when programs are written in C and compiled by a C compiler, the code efficiency is generally lower compared to an Assembly language program. However, good knowledge of microcontroller architecture and C coding helps the developers to optimize the code for reduced size and enhanced performance. For example, if we use a “do { } while ( )” loop, an increment or a decrement loop index generates different code size. Usually we write our loops counting from zero to the maximum value (increment), but

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Three-Phase Electronic Watt-Hour Meter Using the MSP430F677x

The TI’s MSP430F677x devices belong to the powerful 16-bit MSP430F6xx platform, which brings in many new features and provides flexibility to support robust poly-phase metrology solutions. These devices find their application in energy measurement and have the necessary architecture to support them. This application report describes the implementation of a three-phase electronic electricity meter using the MSP430F677x metering processor. The key parameters calculated during energy measurements are: RMS current and voltage, active and reactive power and energies, power factor, and frequency. A 32-bit x 32-bit hardware multiplier on this chip further accelerates the math intensive operations during the energy computation. The

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Understanding ADC parameters for accurate analog-to-digital conversions

Analog-to-digital-conversion (ADC) is required in Embedded Systems to deal with various analog world parameters such as current, pressure, motion, temperature, etc. An ADC is an electronic system or a module that has analog input, reference voltage input and digital outputs. The ADC convert the analog input signal to a digital output value that represents the size of the analog input comparing to the reference voltage. It basically samples the input analog voltage and produces an output digital code for each sample taken. This application note from Atmel describes the fundamental concepts of ADC and the associated parameters that determine the performance and accuracy of the ADC’s

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