Think you can do without Pull-Up Resistors? Only Chuck Norris doesn’t need them.
A DMM, or multimeter, is the go-to instrument for debugging most circuits. You probably already have at least one DMM on your bench for this reason. Me? I have three. But that’s a different story. Let’s talk about a Logic Analyzer.
Digital signals represent two states: on (usually “1”) and off (usually “0”). A multimeter (DMM) may be of limited value for these signals. When using the DC voltage measurement, you can see “something” is happening, but not exactly what that “something” is. For example on a PWM pin, you’ll see the RMS Voltage change as you modify the duty cycle. However, you can not see if the signal is “ringing” when turning on and off.
For debugging digital signals, a popular option is to use a Logic Analyzer. If you are not familiar with a logic analyzer, or you are not sure if you need one, this tutorial should help.
First I’ll give a simple overview of what a Logic Analyzer does, some considerations when to use one, and then give some terms to know when looking at them.
A couple of weeks ago I posted four things to know about the ESP8266 before using one. The biggest surprise from that post is people seem to think I do not like the ESP8266! This idea is not the case; the ESP8266 is awesome. I like them so much that my Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with ESP8266 has become my go-to Arduino board.
Wait what? James uses something other than Arduino? Yes, I do! I have many different boards and have used most of them for one task or another.
However, when it came to day-to-day “make something quickly” type work, I relied on my Uno. But not anymore. Here are the 5 reasons the ESP8266 is my go-to Arduino board.
This week’s MQTT Tutorial connects a Raspberry Pi, ESP8266 (or Arduino), and a PC together. Remember last week’s post provided an overview of message brokers and MQTT. We learned that MQTT is a hub and spoke protocol for sending messages between IoT devices. Clients can subscribe or publish messages to a central server, called a broker.
Now it’s time to connect our IoT devices together!
Hardware Developers Didactic Galactic is a group for hardware designers, hackers, and enthusiasts to discuss hardware-related topics. HDDG11 (or 0xb) featured a presentation from SnapEDA CEO on Footprints and my presentation on Capacitors.
Titled “They’re JUST capacitors?” I used content from my time as a KEMET Field Application Engineer.
Overview
In the presentation, I address the common myth or guideline: “capacitors should be derated 50%.” Comparing Aluminum, Ceramic, and Tantalum we discuss why each technology has a de-rating associated with it. Turns out, they all have different reasons to de-rate.
Additionally, I give a brief introduction to Supercapacitors. (You’ll note that it is spelled with one word…) The key to understanding what makes them “super” relies on how they achieve the common capacitor structure of electrode plate, dielectric, electrode plate.
Download PDF (11mb)Tools mentioned at the HDDG11 Presentation
- KEMET Catalog App for Mobile Devices
- Capacitor Simulator K-SIM
- KEMET Engineering Center (capacitor technical content)
- AddOhms Video Tutorials
