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Issue #234 January 2010 — Embedded Applications
Task Manager
More Than Tinkering, by C. J. Abate
Priority Interrupt
A Handshake and a Future, by Steve Ciarcia
New Product News, edited by John Gorsky
FEATURE ARTICLES
Teletext-Based TV Interface
by Hans-Dieter Paul
This design uses a TV’s built-in teletext decoder for displaying colored text and pseudo-graphics on the screen. It serves 15 pages that are continuously sent to the TV along with a video signal. If you don’t live in Europe where teletext is used, you can apply these design techniques to your own server development and graphics-related projects. p. 14
Keywords: Teletext, TV, PAL, LPC2138, DAC, synchronous serial port, SSP
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
The CtrlBox
An Ethernet Control System Interface
by Ralph Stirling
This well-designed motion control interface features a WIZnet W5100 that provides an interface between a Xilinx Spartan3 FPGA board and a host computer. The FPGA counts pulses from four quadrature shaft encoders and generates PWM for a motor amplifier. You can use the host PC to perform control calculations. Here the system is used in an inverted pendulum apparatus. p. 30
Keywords: Control interface, W5100, Spartan-3, FPGA, quadrature encoder, PWM, inverted pendulum, Ethernet, WIZ810MZ, PicoBlaze, DHCP, MATLAB
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
A Practical Parallel CRC Generation Method
by Evgeni Stavinov
Do you understand the mechanics of the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) well enough to build a customized parallel CRC circuit described by an arbitrary CRC generator polynomial? This article covers a practical method of generating Verilog or VHDL code for the parallel CRC. The result is the fast generation of a parallel CRC code for an arbitrary polynomial and data width. p. 38
Keywords: CRC, generation, cyclic redundancy check, Verilig, VHDL, LFSR
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
Multichannel Touch Sensors
Implement Scalable Capacitive Touch Sensing
by Matt Oppenheim
Tired of switching? Try touching. It’s now easy to implement a versatile multichannel touch sensor in various projects. Here you learn how to design a 20-channel device of your own. p. 46
Keywords: Touch sensing, multichannel, capacitive, QT1103, dsPIC33FJ128GP706, LM3658B, battery management, MCP23S17, FT232RL, Bluetooth
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
Three-Axis Stepper Controller
by Miguel Sanchez
Stepper motor controller projects are posted all over the Internet, but many are platform-dependent. Now you can build an Arduino-based, platform-independent driver board that enables you to break free from platform constraints. p. 54
Keywords: Stepper motor, controller, Arduino, ATmega168, ULN2804, L293D, drive modes
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
COLUMNS
SILICON UPDATE
SoC with a Capital “P”
A Look at the PSoC 3 and PSoC 5
by Tom Cantrell
If you thought the first PSoC was great, wait until you get your hands on the PSoC 3 and PSoC 5. These affordable new PSoCs—with which you can define your own programmable logic functions—operate over a wide voltage range and are extremely easy to use. Now you just need to choose an application. p. 22
Keywords: PSoC 3, PSoC 5, 8051, Cortex-M3, voltage booster, USB, FirstTouch, PSoC Creator
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
FROM THE BENCH
Good Vibrations
Wave Shaping and Theremin Design with an MCU
by Jeff Bachiochi
Do you want to build your own version of the Theremin? This project enables you to produce a varying sine tone without physical contact. You can use a microcontroller’s output bits to create a DAC with an R-2R ladder network of resistors. Each write to the port produces an immediate output voltage. p. 62
Keywords: Theremin, wave shaping, DAC, R-2R ladder, PIC18F2221, Moog, infrared, GP2D120X, range sensor
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
LESSONS FROM THE TRENCHES
Debugging Techniques
by George Martin
During the course of your engineering career, you’ll likely work on projects of all sorts: big systems, little systems, real-time systems, and more. As you’ll see, there’s not one sure-fire debugging technique that you can apply to every project. Your best bet is to have a good grounding in a few techniques and then approach each project on a case-by-case basis. p. 70
Keywords: C, debugging, IDE, break point, unit testing, digital scope, test points
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
BONUS FEATURE ARTICLE
Arduino Internet Clock
by Andrew Lindsay
The Adruino Internet Clock is a timepiece that acquires the current date and time information from Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers on the Internet. It then displays the information on an LCD for easy reading.
(As appeared with Circuit Cellar Digital Plus issue. Subscribers get immediate access to Bonus Materials. Click here for Digial Plus subscription options)
(A link to the article will be emailed to you.)
PREVIEW
Issue #235 February 2010 — Wireless Communications
◊ RFID-Based Liquid Control (Part 1): Working with Off-the-Shelf Components
◊ Floating Point for DSP
◊ Advanced Encryption Standard: Understanding AES Without Math
◊ FPGA Embedded Microcontroller Environment
◊ THE DARKER SIDE Living with Errors: An Introduction to Forward Error Correction
◊ ABOVE THE GROUND PLANE Totally Featureless Clock (Part 1): WWVB Simulator
◊ FROM THE BENCH Sun Tracker (Part 1): Create a Directional Light Sensor
◊ SILICON UPDATE A Winning Hand: Betting on the ARM Cortex-M3
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