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Issue #201 April 2007
The Cruelest Month?
by C.J. Abate
Even if you spent your college years working with circuit boards and writing code, you’re probably familiar with the famous first sentence of the poet T.S. Eliot’s modernist masterpiece, The Waste Land (1922):
“April is the cruelest month—”
You may have heard a few exhausted bookkeepers and accountants mumble that line a few times too. Tax season, right?
Well, we here at Circuit Cellar have a different take on April. It’s a great month. Not only are we now past the days of sleet, snow, and dark commutes to and from the office, we have a lot of exciting things on our plate—which is your plate too, of course.
This month we’re off to the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, where we plan to spend the entire week talking everything embedded with our readers and advertisers. Look for our booth. We hope to see you there!
The Microchip 16-Bit Embedded Control Design Contest also kicks off this month. As you know, we’ve brought you a lot of amazing contests over the years. This one is sure to create a lot of buzz in the design community. With a handful of amazing eligible parts to choose from, this contest is going to get competitive quick. Ready to hit the workbench?
On the editorial front, we’re excited about the articles in this issue. On page 12, we begin with an article about Steven Savage’s award-winning ATir keyboard interface design. This project won him First Prize in the Atmel AVR Design Contest 2006. If you’re preparing a project for the new Microchip contest, be sure to check out this article. Steven shows what it takes to put together a winning project.
Another project-inspiring design is Tom Kibalo’s Java-based 1-Wire distributed watering system (p. 20). Tom used his hardware and software skills to build a handy system to water plants in six EarthBoxes. Even if gardening isn’t your thing, you can use the principles he covers to design and program a multiple-module system for other purposes.
At the end of his article about the watering system, Tom writes that he plans to use ZigBee technology to extend the system’s range beyond its 1-Wire limitations. Well, you don’t need to wait until Tom upgrades his system and writes another article. Why not take Fred Eady’s advice and implement the technology in a system of your own? In “Uncomplicated RF Communication” (p. 45), Fred shows you how to get your system on the air.
On page 28, Gordon Dick describes how he designed and built a three-axis CNC mill machine. The easy-to-move machine is a great project for anyone who loves design and woodworking. It features an old laptop, an intelligent motion controller, and an old X-ray machine.
Have you tried Visual Basic 2005 yet? As you know, Aubrey has been putting it to use for some time now. This month, he finishes up his series about a generic Modbus simulator (p. 60). To put you on the right track, he explains how he created the generic interface to gain access to any Modbus slave via an Excel workbook. As Aubrey explains, the application simply pulls the information from Excel, presents it on the UI, formats it, and sends and receives Modbus messages.
With projects like these to keep you occupied, it’s going to be a productive month.
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