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The Stirling cycle – technology beyond expectation

The key code of a Stirling engine is that a downright calculate of gas is sealed within the machine. The Stirling cycle involves a cycle of check that mutation the hassle of the gas within the engine, causing it to do work. There are numerous properties of gasses that are risky to the venture of Stirling engines: If you have a rigid amount of gas in a rigid level of celestial and hoist the gas’s temperature, the hassle will improve. If you have a rigid amount of gas and compress it (decrease the level of its space), the gas temperature will improve. Let’s go through the piece part of the Stirling chain while looking at a simplified Stirling engine. One cylinder is heated by an outdoor heat bound (such as a fire), and the other is cooled by an outdoor cooling bound. The two cylinders’ gas chambers are allied, and the pistons are joined to apiece other mechanically by a linkage that determines how they will move about one another. You can add heat to the gas inside the heated cylinder (left), making it a bit hard. It compels the piston to move a little down. This is the part…

Happy 40th Anniversary to the First Computer Mouse!

A mouse (Not the pesky rodent!) is a pointing device, where it functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. To be more precise, a mouse consists of an object that holds under one of the user’s hands, with one or more buttons. As you can see, the contemporary computer mouse has a wheel that allows the user to perform various system-dependent operations. Do you know that inventor Douglas Engelbart was creating the first computer mouse on Dec 9, 1968? After a glorious 40th anniversary years, Douglas said, “Although there’s been an explosion of technology in the past 4 decades, it hasn’t reached the level of potential he envisioned in the early 1960s yet!”

The Great PLL Induction Heater Driver

Have you ever played with a manually tuned induction heater before? If you did, then you must know that how dull it could be… Oh, for those that didn’t know what the induction heater is, that is a key piece of equipment used in all forms of induction heating. An induction heater will technically operate at either medium frequency (MF) or radiofrequency (RF) ranges. Three main components form the basis of a modern induction heater, such as the power unit (power inverter), the word head (transformer), and the coil (inductor). This project is slightly different from the regular induction heater driver, as it will include the Phase Lock Loop (PLL) into it. A phase lock loop is a control system that can generate a signal, and it has a fixed relation to the phase of a “reference” signal itself. Since the phase lock loop circuit responds to both the frequency and the input signals phase, it raises or lowers the frequency of a controlled oscillator automatically until it’s matched to the reference in both frequency and phase. Overall, this PLL induction heater driver will be one of the magnificent projects that you’ve ever built!

Great method of PCB reverse engineering by using a Photoshop

Rriccibitti has sent us his latest work on reverse engineering of simple keypad circuit. The solution seems to be very simple but effective. He used a digital camera to take a picture of the printed circuit board and a photo editing software to track PCB traces with different colors. OK, for this one, he used Photoshop to have lots of valuable tools that make this work much more manageable. To be more specific, let us see what he’s done:

Free pascal compiler for 8051 microcontrollers

If you like to work with 8051 microcontrollers and like Pascal programming language, here is Turbo51 – a free Pascal compiler for the 8051 families of microcontrollers. In the 1980s, Intel introduced the 8051 as the first member of the MCS-51 family of microcontrollers. Today hundreds of cheap 8051 derivatives are available from tens of manufacturers. This makes the MCS-51 architecture so interesting for professionals and hobbyists. It is a somewhat surprising fact that this 8-bit architecture is still in use today. In other words, it is still trendy. Several C compilers are available for the 8051. However, there are only a few Pascal compilers for the 8051 families available. There are many debates on which programming language is better. Turbo51 is for those who prefer Pascal. Turbo51 features a fast single pass optimizing compiler, Borland Turbo Pascal 7 syntax, full floating point support, mixed Pascal and assembler programming, full use of register banks, advanced multi-pass optimizer, smart linker, generates compact high-quality code, output formats include binary, Intel HEX and assembler source.

Putting your electronics project in an enclosure

Projects that are probably finished and put in an enclosure always catch an eye rather than a PCB prototype with multiple wires showing up. Of course, a project that does its job is fine enough even without a nice shell. But what if you don’t want your board to be exposed. Then put your project in a box. From this point, you need to be an electronics engineer and designer in one. Probably everyone has their own way of putting projects in the boxes, but few tips can save time and nerves. Let’s go through things to keep in mind while looking for boxes and planning necessary tasks: If you have buttons that need to be accessed through the case, find a shallow enclosure or tall controls. If there is a display you want to read but don’t enjoy a big hole in the lid, look for an enclosure with a clear top. If environmental conditions may be a factor, find an enclosure rated for the needs you expect your product to experience. Take a look at these IP ratings. Many manufacturers follow the IP rating system for describing enclosures. Maybe your project has lots of switches or external ports;…

How to sprintf float numbers with AVR GCC

The float numbers are not recommended to use with smaller 8-bit AVR microcontrollers. The main reason is that the AVR core does not have a floating-point arithmetic unit built-in. The software library emulates the floating-point arithmetic operations. The software library simulates Floating-point arithmetic operations. However, in real-world applications, you may need to use numbers with floating-point. In some particular cases, you can get away without you declaring variables as float type. If operations are simple like division or multiplying by 2, 4, 8, they can be replaced by the byte shift operation (byte<<1)=byte*2 Of course, it depends on the different situations and data you are manipulating – sometimes using floats is inevitable. If your code fits into Program memory and execution speed is not critical, use floats or double number formats, as you like.

Show Your Talent by DIY a Sun Tracking Unit

Probably you saw the Sun tracking system before; however, do you have the urge to challenge yourself to make a Sun Tracking Unit? First of all, get a tiny .7″x1.4″ PC board using the LED3X sensor concept. This circuit uses power MOSFET drivers, which most any DC motor can be used without any modification. You might notice that the power drivers are good enough for delivering about 50 amps of peak current or even more. The current will increase accordingly to the transistor. This means the large power MOSFET, 72A, when operated in low power mode, will eliminate the transistor’s need for a heat sink. Cool, isn’t it?

Safety Protection Guides and Fact about Microcontroller You Should Know

Microcontrollers are widely used in nowadays electronic and modern devices. You can track them whether for personal use for fun or even for serious and confidential applications by banks, security services, government authority, or the military field. Most of the algorithm that uploaded into its memory is well written in Assembler. Many villains out there want to hack or attack the microcontroller, maybe just for fun or for their own purposes (some of them willing to hack and sell the top-secret from companies for profitable) To reduce the risk of being attack by these microcontroller hackers, that is why we must know the types of attack categories.

Microcontroller Development tools on USB stick

Looking for compact but flexible, simple, and cheap development board? You should consider this nice list of microcontroller USB-Stick tools. These are special development tools that include all necessary hardware and software in a portable USB stick. Most of them consist of two parts – a USB stick and attachable target board. For instance, eZ430-RF2500 is the world’s smallest low-power wireless development tool. At only $49, the device includes a USB emulator to program and debug your application in-system and two 2.4-GHz wireless target boards featuring the highly integrated MSP430F2274 ultra-low-power MCU.