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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2016 Hackaday Prize is here

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The 2016 Hackaday Prize has been announced today and its time to leverage your hardware skills and creativity to build something awesome that could change people’s lives and win one of 105 cash prizes totaling over $300,000. This year, they are doing this little bit differently. Instead of one big contest, there are five different challenges, each runs for five weeks, and participants can enter their design project to one or more challenges. The Hackaday Prize is a competition synonymous with creating for social change. Using your hardware, coding, scientific, design and mechanical abilities, you will make big changes in

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Wifi controlled thermostat

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This Instructable describes how to build a wifi controlled thermostat that can be programmed over the internet as well as locally through a touchscreen TFT LCD display. The system uses a Raspberry Pi as a central hub that serves web pages so I can control the thermostats from anywhere. The hub also handles all of the wireless communication over nRF24L01+ radio modules (I know I said “WiFi,” and the nRF24L01+ radio module isn’t technically WiFi, but more on that later), and maintains a MySQL database with the thermostat programming as well as any data logging I do. And finally, the hub

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Starling: A wifi enabled LED matrix display

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Explore Embedded, a Banglore, India based startup has introduced a modular and wifi enabled LED matrix display named Starling, that can not only showcase text messages but also notifications from social networking websites, live scores from sports events websites, weather data from online weather services, and more. Starling comes in an easily cascadable modular design with one master module that features the ESP8266 device for Wifi connection and other slave modules to expand the display size horizontally. Each module is powered by Atmega8 microcontroller that stores fonts and custom characters LED patterns in a look up table, drives its own 8×8 LED matrix,

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Dual USB-to-UART/I2C interface board

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Jesus Echavarria‘s new project is a dual USB-to-UART/I2C serial interface board using two MCP2221 chips. This board can be used for debugging UART TX and RX lines as well as providing an USB connectivity in applications that have UART and I2C interfaces. With the help of Microchip’s free PC utilities, you can customize the MCP2221 identifiers and GPIO pins as well as directly communicate with any UART and I2C devices from its GUI interface for rapid prototyping with those devices. MCP221 USB/Serial bridge (A): the basic connection for the MCP2221 converter. It has a small R-C filter on USB lines and a Reset pushbutton.

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