Electronics Circuits of delabs
Instrumentation and Industrial Designs

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Tuxgraphics AVR Microcontroller Projects

Tuxgraphics AVR Microcontroller Projects

"We attach a couple of digital temperature sensors (maxim dallas 1-wire sensors) to the tuxgraphics ethernet board and we can use that not only to see the current temperature but also to plot temperature graphs with 5 days of history. To do this an embedded web server is running on the ethernet board along with drivers for the sensors."

Temperature measurement and equipment control over the internet

Temperature measurement and equipment control over the internet

Buy the Kits here - The tuxgraphics shop: shop.tuxgraphics.orgserver for Instrumentation.

Interface - @tuxgraphics

LaTeX Equation Editor - Equation Maths

Writing Mathematics on the Internet. Witing equations is difficult in a doc, they have to be font independent, that implies images. Webapps do it well.

Also try AbiWord a free word processing program. Excellent for a wide variety of word processing tasks. Has MathML and LaTex input.

  1. OpenOffice.org is an open source office suite and has an equation editor which can export formulas in MathML
  2. GtkMathView is a C++ rendering engine for MathML documents.
  3. MathML Software - Editors

LaTeX Equation Editor -Equation Maths

The interactive LaTex equation editor let's you write and download equations in seconds! You can now integrate the sitmo equation editor with iGoogle or your own site. - sitmo

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

RobotProg - Learn Bot Programming

Program a virtual robot with a flowchart : first you draw the flowchart, then you run the program and watch the robot executing your program. You do not have to own a Robot to start with.

RobotProg - Learn Bot Programming

RobotProg - Learn Bot Programming

See also Solve Elec

Draw and analyze electrical circuits functioning in direct or alternating current. Get literal formulas and values for current intensities and voltages defined in the circuit. Verify circuit related equations.


"Not all bots like to be told what to do, Then these are Instructed Bots. Some Bots later Evolve or Mutate into Fuzzy Bots. Then they will take their own Decisions." - Ananth on delabs.co

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

ARTiGO A1100 PC Kit - VIA Technologies

A compact sub-liter DIY PC kit for enthusiasts who want to taste the next generation of ultra-compact desktop computing. Full 64-bit computing in an Ultra Compact Desktop form factor. Features like HD video support, HDMI and VGA display connectivity, full Gigabit networking, Wi-Fi Support and five USB ports, all into a PC chassis that fits into the palm of your hand.

VIA ARTiGO A1100 PC Kit- VIA Technologies

From Hyper Embedded - Microcontroller ASIC and EDA

Features include:

  • VIA Nano 64-bit Processor
  • HD MPEG-2 & H.264 video decoding hardware acceleration
  • Space saving, palm size PC with 14.6 x 9.9 x 5.2cm (5.7″ x 3.9″ x 2″) dimensions
  • Multiple I/Os: HDMI, USB device port, 4 USB2.0 ports, VGA, Gigabit LAN
  • Optional WiFi networking and SD card reader
  • Supports Microsoft Windows 7 & Linux

From VIA Technologies

delabs notes

Some firms, engineers and hobbyists should completely move to a Desktop Free environment on an Experimental Basis. Only Nettops, Tablets, Netbooks and Nano-PC like above. Saves power for your nation and also moves you in the right direction in computing.

Use more Web-Applications and also experiment with One Wi-Fi Router a Big USB HDD and a Tiny Power Server Cube. A Mini Cloud in your Home or Small-Office. The Mini-Power-Cube has a Web-Server with Hosted Applications; this is centralized Intranet-Mini-Cloud. Never let go of your data and keep it backed up in your flash drive and CDROMs. The Big Boys will use Tape Drives and RAID/Mirroring/Versions to protect your data till you take a backup.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Sensors and Transmitters Real World Interface

I just got a letter from a US firm enquiringly about my transmitters. It read something like ...

".....Mini RTD Pt100 Three Wire Transmitter is commercially available? We may be interested in both the 100 ohm RTD input as well as the 1K ohm RTD input types"

I do not respond to product enquiries as i do not "Make" anymore. But, this letter is about a design of mine that is published in my pages. It is a low cost transmitter anybody can build. Study my Elex Quna where some such letters are published. I may now reply only mail that stimulates me, and appears genuine enough. If you are an engineer in the US, try making these, a better way possibly, and serve people using online stores. Online shops should offer Cards, Cheque and Cash-On-Delivery to enable all types of customers. Items in a store must reach clients, inside 7 days. Other products should be cataloged with prices, outside store application.

Small manufacturers have to get their profile and products across. Just building a site is not enough, you need to advertise. People search for solutions, by proper advertising you can get tuned/filtered visitors to your website. These people were looking for solutions and you are looking for customers.

Other "promotional techniques" get you a lot of visitors. Even "ranking high in search results" gets you "Visitors". This traffic is like Kids looking for Chip-n-Dale landing in a Vertical Niche Product Catalog for Steam Turbines. This will just build bandwidth cost for you, but you will have a nice feeling you are getting Visitors. This may even make your site slow for the rare real visitors, who want to buy your products/services. So think smart, nothing comes easy, lot of hard (straight) work.

I suggest start with Google's Small Business Network and a nice Blog. Try Wordpress or Blogger.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Mechatronics a Montage of All Engineering

I once knew a dogbert, i will not name him. Yet his words resonated as true again and again. Once when someone asked him .. "Where the highest value can be created, in an engineered product?". He reveled a profound secret, that is only discussed in whispers in the backrooms of high-tech upstarts. I will attempt to phrase it in a more concise manner.

"When the raw materials transform into an Engineered product, the highest engineering value is both in the manufacturing process machinery and the manufactured product; If and only if, that product has mechanical, electrical, electronic and computing elements in its composition." - This was Mechatronics?

In essence it appeared to be a CNC machine, but not exactly, CNC too and much more. Robotics is a pinnacle of this collage. Then an Intelligent Embedded Control System with sensors, switches, tachos, drives and motor a part of Mechatronics. Looks like control engineering, a sub-section of mechatronics too. Control engineering is also an independent science. Can't leave out Intelligent machinery and Complex Gadgets.

Without chemical, component and materials engineering all the above cannot materialize. They create the inputs and technologies to the systems above.

Finally two examples for Mechatronic Marvels - One the Lone Martian called Rover (like Wall-E) and the Ultra Busy HardDisk HDD in your own Computer.

From Design Gopher - Electronic Product Development

Related Sciences

Systems Engineering - Managing and Integrating a Large Engineered System Solution. Includes Process, Project, Time, Work-flow, Co-ordination and Communication. (Means .. many Crimson Ties and a lot of Meetings ;-)

Mems - Micro, Electronic/Electrical, Mechanical Systems.

Start Reading in detail about it, but never skip Lunch. -

Monday, August 02, 2010

Open Source Hardware - OSHW Draft Definition

OSHW Draft Definition 0.3 is based on the Open Source Definition for Open Source Software and draft OSHW definition 0.2, further incorporating ideas from the TAPR Open Hardware License.

Open Source Hardware - OSHW Draft Definition

Open Source Hardware (OSHW) is a term for tangible artifacts - machines, devices, or other physical things - whose design has been released to the public in such a way that anyone can make, modify, distribute, and use those things.

From - Open Hardware Summit