USBtiny is a software implementation of the USB low-speed protocol for the Atmel ATtiny microcontrollers. Of course, it will also work on the ATmega series. The software is written for an AVR clocked at 12 MHz. At this frequency, each bit on the USB bus takes 8 clock cycles, and with a lot of trickery, it is possible to decode and encode the USB waveforms by software.

Other Atmel AVR Projects he built are

• batwatch – Monitor for a solar panel car battery charger
• webasto – Remote control of Webasto water heater
• blink – Automatic turn signal light
• nikon- Nikon Camera Remote Control

Projects of Dick Streefland from De Bilt

Dick Streefland, lives in Amersfoort, in the center of The Netherlands. He has some Atmel AVR Projects and he is a big fan of Linux. He started on a 6809-based home-brew system with the OS9 operating system from Microware.

There are many better circuits in the various circuit archives i have linked on the front page, you just have to look around. When you measure the open circuit voltage of a battery with a high impedance DMM (10M), the value may be a bit misleading. Apply a dummy load to bleed the battery a bit so that proper readings can be taken on Load. The load below is a 100 ohms wire-wound fusible ceramic resistor which will heat a bit when you test 12V batteries.

Theory of Operation.

R16 a 5W ceramic wire wound bleeder or dummy load. R15 is a part of an attenuator for obtaining ranges. D2 is a protection clamp diode. R10-D1 forms the 5V reference for comparators. Then an attenuator obtains 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 V steps for each comparator. This circuit is similar to Audio Level meter or VU meter circuit.

The comparator compares the battery sample voltage to the fixed reference step. If ‘+’ pin is more positive than ‘-’, or is ‘+’ is more dominant, then output goes floating ‘open collector’, so No LED light . But if ‘-’ is more dominant the output transistor of comparator goes low impedance or saturates or turns ‘ON’. But only spec current can be switched, do not compare with electrical switch ‘ON’. Also on a dual supply 0V is more dominant or positive compared with -12V, even though it appears -12V is a big number. The direction of current is what decides, all measurements are relative.

More Information

• Comparators in Interface Circuits
• Projects of Chemelec

Add Internet-Connectivity to your Applications with only a very few lines of C-Code. Many demos are included in uC/51, like: Webserver, E-Mail, Time-Client, TCP, UDP. Make Control System with remote Internet access to your sensors or actuatoors.

Embedded webserver FlexGate III

• Easy-to-use stack, written with uC/51 V1.20
• Everything “on board”
• Best suited for uC/51 as development-hardware
• uC/51-Tool-Chain Integration
• CPU: 64kB Flash, 2 kB XRAM (32 kB as option), ISP, up to 5 MIPS
• RS232 or USB (as option)
• New V2.0 TCP/IP Stack included in uC/51 as 100% Sourcecode
• Complete Low-Cost-Kits only 120.– EUR*:
• FlexGate III module, RS232 cable, uC/51 Full Version, Power supply

Mikrocontroller Entwicklungssysteme Entwicklungstools

µC/51 V1.20.05 – Superoptimizing ANSI C compiler for the 8051 family

Development boards and Tools – OLIMEX

SAM9-L9261 is development platform with ARM9 microcontroller, TFT LCD 3.5″ 320×240 pixels with TOUCHSCREEN.

64MB SDRAM, 512MB NAND Flash. Ethernet 100Mbit controller, USB host, USB device, RS232 and 40 pin extension port with all unused SAM9261 ports available for add-on boards. Runs Linux, WindowsCE and other RTOS natively. RTC – 3V Li battery.

SAM9-L9261 Development Platform with ARM9

AT91SAM9260 is the first member of a pin-compatible ARM9-based microcontroller family that shares the same programming model as ARM7-based controllers.

OLIMEX Ltd.
2 Pravda St., P.O.Box 237, Plovdiv 4000 BULGARIA

Virtual Breadboard – Test Embedded Systems

Compared to other simulators many people find the high level approach taken VBB easier to use and much faster to model and test out new ideas and circuit variations.

From Design Gopher – Electronic Product Development

VBB electronic circuit components are modeled at the function block level and are wired together to create a real-time interactive circuit simulation representing the whole embedded application.

VBB does not use SPICE. SPICE is better suited to subcircuit designs whereas VBB is concerned with merging multiple subcircuits treating each subcircuit as a self contained function block.

BeagleBoard.org – Creating powerful, open, and embedded devices.

“The Beagle Board is a low-cost, fan-less single-board computer based on Texas Instruments OMAP35x processors featuring the ARM Cortex-A8 core”

The USB-powered Beagle Board is a low-cost, fan-less single board computer that unleashes laptop-like performance and expandability without the bulk, expense, or noise of typical desktop machines.

BeagleBone Black – Boot Linux in under 10 seconds and get started on development in less than 5 minutes with just a single USB cable.

OMAP3530 processor highlights:

Over 1,200 Dhrystone MIPS using the superscalar ARM Cortex-A8 with highly accurate branch prediction and 256KB L2 cache running at up to 600MHz. HD video capable TMS320C64x+ DSP for versatile signal processing at up to 430MHz.

Buy a BeagleBoard at Digikey

Some Projects on BB

beaglelab – BeagleLAB is an Embedded Developer’s Workbench

BeagleBot – Beagle powered robot – A small experimental robot with Beagle Board as it’s heart.

Universal Real-Time Software Oscilloscope GUI DLL Library

“The library is supplied with a comprehensive description of the program interface and simple examples of its use executed in various different program development environments: MS Visual C++® & Visual Basic®; Borland Delphi® & C++Builder®; MathWorks Matlab® & Simulink®, C# (C Sharp).”

“Applied software emitting data to this oscilloscope obtained data via such communications as serial port (RS232, 422, 485), SSI, USB, CAN bus, Ethernet, GRIB (instrumental interface), via custom-made communications equipment and also by collecting information via a data acquisition card with analog-to-digital converters mounted on the PCI bus-bar of a PC.”

delabs Notes -

I am amazed, i did not notice this. I tried it it, not fully, it seems to be quite versatile. I feel this may be useful for hobbists to try out some experiments in oscilloscope and logic analyzer. It would be good if it was Open Source, it may help developing more instruments.

I am not sure about this Library in terms to actual high speed testing or if it may be developed further. But is it interesting.

For students i feel Bitscope offers some nice tools too. BitScopes are USB or Ethernet connected PC Based Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes.

AVR XMEGA Oscilloscope and Waveform generator

From Hyper Embedded – Microcontroller ASIC and EDA

Some features:

• ATXMEGA128A1 microcontroller with 128KB Flash, 8KB SRAM, 2KB EEPROM
• External serial SRAM 32KB
• Arbitrary Waveform Generator, 1MSPS, using the XMEGA’s internal DAC
• JTAG and PDI interfaces for development
• User external connection with digital I/Os or SPI interface
• Graphic LCD 128×128 pixels with backlight

From -

Gabotronics – Designs and manufactures embedded systems. Specialized in 8-32 bits microcontroller projects, instrumentation and data acquisition, PCB Layout, custom electronic designs and engineering consultation. Based in Palmetto, FL.

Technologic Systems – Embedded Systems

Compatible with a wide range of operating systems including Linux which is default with complete driver support for the hardware. The flash memory media included in the development kit boots to a operating system and comes with C/C++ development tools installed. TS-Linux mini distribution provides Apache web server, FTP and telnet client/server. This kit does not include the TS-ARM SBC.

SBC ARM Kit from Technologic Systems

From Hyper Embedded – Microcontroller ASIC and EDA

Some Features

• ARM-Linux OS out-of-the-box
• Flash media with Debian-ARM
• GNU development tool-chain
• Digital documentation/manuals
• Utility Media with full SBC resources

Bakatronics – DIY Kits and Model Railroads

The Kits include the Lighthouse Flasher, Emergency Lights, Airport Beacon, Campfire and Super Welder Flash kits All are based on advance micro controller technology and will enhance any railroad.

FK945 Digital Temperature Controller kit

This circuit can be used to control when an appliance or device turns on and off by temperature. 3 Digit Read Out and easy to set buttons.

Atmel’s AVR is most interesting chip, with modern 8-bit RISC MCU and rich I/O performance in less $ price. With tons of document available on web since simple D.I.Y. hardware project to complex system design.

AVR becomes the value choice for implement “Physical Computing” idea. The proposal of “physical Computing ” is made for interaction of hardware control “the real world” with easy software programming.

MIDE-51 software package on web with ASEM-51 Assemmbler tools for MCS-51 beginner.

MCS-51 is the good MCU for getting start to learn and use. But now.. we have many microcontroller available on market. Modern chips had much more advantage features than old MCS-51 , e.g. Microchip’s PIC / dsPIC, Atmel AVR / AVR32 thru high-end ARM base MCU”

“The PIC18 Explorer features a PIC18F8722 microcontroller –the superset of …. PIC18 general purpose 5V family. This board also includes the PIC18F87J11 processor PIM, which is the superset of our PIC18 J-series of 3V MCUs for cost-sensitive applications.”

Features Include

• Alpha-numeric LCD display
• USB interface for USB to RS-232 communication
• 25LC256 SPI EEPROM
• Crystal oscillator
• Potentiometer (connected to 10-bit A/D, analog input channel)
• Analog output temperature sensor
• LEDs, RS-232 port, Demo Software etc.