Kuryentronics

Create Circuit Simulations on your Phone with iCircuit

2012-10-18T09:44:00.000+08:00

iCircuit is an easy to use circuit simulator and editor on your iOS and, recently, Android phone. It's a perfect tool for engineers, students, and hobbyists who are on-the-go and need a quick look at how a circuit works.

As the creator said,

The app features a multimeter that you use to probe around the circuit to instantly read voltages and currents. If you want to see how a value changes over time, then you can add values to the built-in oscilloscope. The scope can simultaneously track many signals over time and features a touch interface to control the total time displayed and stacked and unstacked modes to easily compare signals.

Basically it's a simulator built for studying simple electronic circuits or a component. Touching a component will display an oscilloscope to see what is happening on the waveform at that component. I've used this once to show how a power supply works - rectification, filtering, regulation.

Supported elements include:

Signal generators, Voltage sources, and Current sources
Resistors, Capacitors, and inductors
Manual SPST/SPDT Switches, and SPST/SPDT relays
Diodes, BJ Transistors, and MOSFETs
Speakers, Buzzers, and LEDs
ADCs, and DACs
Logic gates: AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR
JK and D Flip-flops

Its also loaded with sample circuits to see the app in action

(You may want to set the volume to mute when watching the vid)

iCircuit is really a handy app so try it out yourself!

Apple AppStore ($9.99) (~Php500)

Google Play (Php206)

Soldering is Easy

2012-10-15T14:50:00.000+08:00

Soldering was the hardest part for me when I first started out on a couple of projects. My soldering iron was always oxidized thus unable to efficiently melt or transfer a solder into the PCB, and uneven blobs of solder in my components. One look at my board and you know it was done by a rookie.

But hey time's have changed after making about five projects, little-by-little my soldering skills had improved.

There are a lot of soldering tutorials out there on the net to help you so I need not make another one. I'll just share to you the resources I found to give you an introduction on how solder your circuits with ease, and/or to enhance your skills in soldering.

YouTube Videos:

A well-maintained soldering iron is necessary to properly solder your components, this is to make the solder stick to your iron and to the board for faster soldering. Failure to do so will cause the solder not to stick to your 'burnt' iron and may cause overheating your board.

PDF File:

This one's a cool comic book about soldering that's perfect for beginners and amateurs. Place it on your phone or tablet, (or better yet print it out) and share it to your friends and fellow enthusiasts.

Go to the download site or click the link below!

Have you got any soldering tutorials or tips for easier soldering? Share it in comments!

Etching Your PCB using Toner Transfer Method

2012-10-11T16:04:00.000+08:00

Etching and Soldering your PCB sounds difficult to do if you come to think of it. But with a little help from experienced people around and some videos on YouTube I successfully came through this step with minimal effort.

First off when buying a glossy paper I would recommend a single sided one, because the double-sided glossy paper smells really bad during ironing. I think it is also bad for your health if you inhaled that burnt plastic stuff so opt to buy the single-sided one.

After your design has been printed on a glossy paper cut the excess paper and place it face-down on the PCB with the ink touching the copper plate. I recommend ironing on wood with a layer of newspaper and bond paper. Also make sure that the iron is at MAX before ironing it.

Starting at one side, slowly but surely iron the paper towards the other side. If you feel that the paper stuck through the copper plate push the iron at the middle and hold it for about 5 seconds.

One technique that worked for me is pressing the tip of the iron along the lines or the connections like you're sketching your design using the tip of the iron. I noticed that if you can see the outline of your circuit at the top it means that you're doing it right. Continue till you can see it clearer.

Once you're confident that the ink will stick on the copper plate (or better yet have a spare PCB just to make sure) immerse it in water and let it cool, then slowly peel off the paper.

Scrape off the excess paper with your fingers till the circuit is free from unnecessary paper, this is important because it may cause problems at the etching process.

Your PCB is now ready for etching. For this step we'll need two containers, some hot water and Ferric Chloride solution.

When buying Ferric Chloride I recommend the one that is already a solution (liquid) instead of the powder one. In my experience (and my friend's) with these two the solution etched significantly faster compared to the powdered one.

I saw this video about etching and his technique on placing a hot water below the container with the Ferric Chloride solution made the etching process even faster. Check it out below.

And that's it you're now finished on Etching your PCB! On the next post we'll talk about soldering and some maintenance tips on using your soldering iron properly.

If you have some questions or suggestions about Etching feel free to comment below!

Arduino Companion App for Android and iOS

2012-10-09T13:24:00.001+08:00

Since I bought my first arduino and ran a couple of simple projects I've never stopped thinking about what cool inventions I could do with such a small but powerful device!

I'm still in the process of mastering the basic stuff and the programming language so there's a lot more to do.

Luckily while browsing the Play store for some apps I happen to stumble upon this app called "Arduino Companion".

Arduino Companion is an app for people who are usually on the go and would like to have a full Arduino reference at the palm of their hands anytime and anywhere. And since this is an offline reference you won't need to connect to the web for a quick look.

I must say that I'm impressed on how helpful this app is. Aside from the reference, it has a resistor color code calculator for those folks who don't know what's the value of their resistor.

Want to find something about a certain topic or reference? This app has a built-in search interface to find it for you easily.

During my break time or when I've got nothing to do and I simply read this. I found lots of things packed inside this app and it's a cool way to learn something new about Arduino and what it can do.

So why not download it today and learn Arduino on-the-go!

Google Play Store

iOS App Store

PCB Circuit Design using EAGLE

2012-10-06T10:14:00.000+08:00

When I started my first electronics project, A Variable Power Supply, the first thing I did was to draw the schematic diagram of the circuit on pen and paper. Problem arise when I do not know how transfer it on a PCB for etching. That's when I turned to Google to help me. I found this open-source software for PCB designing called EAGLE.

The name EAGLE is an acronym, which stands for Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor. This award winning software offers user friendly, powerful and affordable solutions for PCB design, including Schematic Capture, Board Layout and Autorouter. User Language Programs enable features such as simulation and 3D-visualization.

EAGLE is perfect for students and professionals because of its user-friendly interface and lots of features for your simple to hands-down complicated circuit designs. Because of the many things you can do with EAGLE I will not just focus on the tools and the steps that I used in making my VPS and how I did it.

(For those who want to print the Variable power supply circuit and schematic click the download link below)

First download EAGLE (Windows/ Mac/ Linux) on their site, and Install. It takes up only a small space.

After installing it click on the icon, at the EAGLE Control Panel Right Click on Project > New Project - a new project folder will appear (you can rename the folder if you like).

Now right click on the folder and go to "New" > "Schematic". This will create a schematic file and an EAGLE "Schematic" window will appear.

To be able to place components to the work area we need to select the component libraries to be used. To do that click on "Library > Use..." and a window will appear. Locate the component library that you'll use. Usually the component library will be similar to the name of the component.

On my version of EAGLE I can only open a single library at a time so its a bit exhausting, but I think newer versions will be able to open more than one.

Anyway, once you're done we can now add components on the work area and start making your schematic diagram! On the command buttons at the left side on the window click on the"Add" button, then locate the element in the search bar at the bottom left. Hit the escape button when you're done.

Other tools that I used on making my Schematic are the

Move tool for moving the components within the work area,

Selection tool for defining a group,

Delete tool for deleting components,

Rotate tool for rotating, and

the Net tool for making the connections.

The Name tool is used to define the name of the element

and the Value tool to indicate the value.

After the connections are finished, you'll have something like this

This one's the schematic for the power supply that I made for my project. Another thing that I liked about EAGLE is once you're done with the schematic all of the elements placed will be transferred to the board for arranging and etching. To design the board click on the "Board" button, this will take you to the board window. Clicking this button again will take you back into the Schematic window - just in case you need to change or add something.

The board window is connected to your schematic so the components that you've placed will also appear in the board diagram not in terms of its schematic symbol, but as a drawing of the component itself. Also since what your working on the board is your schematic diagram, any changes on it will affect the board.

With the use of the move tool and rotate tool arrange the circuit to your liking. Make sure that no yellow line will intersect so that the next step will be easier.

Another tool that I would like to introduce is the "Rats nest" tool.

What it basically does is to further simplify the connections of your circuit, making it much more easier to arrange and design. I had problems of properly placing the wires so that they won't overlap, this tool really helped me on doing that.

After lots of moving, rotating and 'ratsnest'-ing you'll have something like this.

the last step in making your design is to use the Autorouter tool (the tool next to the ratsnest tool).

The yellow lines are not really the connections on your PCB it just indicates how your components are connected to each other. Using this tool will replace the yellow lines with solid and thicker wires, perfect to use for PCB etching.

A window will appear with lots of tabs and options bur I just hit OK and I went well. Your circuit will now look like this.

At this stage you should be finished. But I encountered problems here as some wires overlapped since I'm using a single-sided PCB (I think the red wire indicate one side of the PCB and blue wire are another side).

One solution the I found is to use the Route tool and the Ripup tool.

Route tool, as the name implies, manually routes the connections on your circuit - you can even use this instead of the Autoroute tool.

Ripup tool removes the 'routes' or the wires on the circuit and return back to the yellow lines, to be routed again.

Finally your circuit is finished! You can now print the circuit on a glossy paper. I recommend this type of glossy paper as it worked for me but I don't know what is the minimum gsm of the glossy paper or if that even matter.

I think I bought the right glossy paper when I saw this one at the back.

You're now ready to print! But don't print just yet!

You don't want to print your board with the pictures of the components intact, only the wires (and holes) are needed to be printed.

The layers tool will remove the unnecessary layers in your circuit. just pick out the layers for the dimension of your board, wires, and holes.

NOW you're ready to print! In printing your circuit I printed over it twice for thicker ink and for easier ironing but the disadvantage of doing such is when I removed the ink after etching (there was a lot of smudges and a lot of acetone were used) still it was just for aesthetic purposes and I realized that I will not be seen anyway.

Tune in as we continue our four part project series! Prepare your iron and PCB, and your ironing skills 'coz next time we'll transfer the toner!

For the ready to print circuit and the schematic diagram just hit download below (opens in a new window)

Project 101: Variable DC Power Supply 1.25-30 Volts (Introduction)

2012-10-02T22:56:00.000+08:00

A Variable DC Power Supply (VPS) is a device that supplies electric power to an electrical load and, as the name implies, allows the user to vary or change the DC output voltage within the specified voltage ranges. - which is the only difference compared to a Regulated Power Supply that spits out a constant output voltage.

A power supply is a must have for any person engaging in any electronics hobby for testing your electronics projects in the future.

You can buy power supplies of different voltage ratings at your local electronics store, but making your own working device has that positive feeling of accomplishment and as a plus side you can customize your power supply any way you like which is great for hobbyists!

Now I would like to break down my journey into four steps to minimize the length of this post, they are:

1.) Designing the Power Supply using Eagle
2.) Etching the PCB using toner transfer method
3.) Soldering the components
4.) Placing the circuit in an enclosure

I'll provide resources that helped me in successfully making my own power supply, and mention the problems I had faced and how I managed to solve them. As this was done by a student the steps will not be as in-depth as some might expect but rather it shows how someone would accomplish such project as simple as possible with little experience or knowledge in electronics, therefore suggestions would be very much appreciated!

To start our journey let's have first our components list.

QTY.	PART NAME	RATING/PART CODE
1	Step-down Transformer	220Vpri, 12-0-12Vsec
6	Diode	1N4001
1	Capacitor	Electrolytic, 2200µF, 50V
2	Capacitor	Electrolytic, 22uF, 50V
1	Capacitor	Mylar, 0.1uF, 50V
1	Resistor	180Ω, 1/4w
1	Potentiometer	0-5kΩ
1	Adjustable Voltage Regulator (Positive)	LM317T
1 (pair)	Pole Terminal (red & black)
1	Switch (3-pin w/ LED)	250V_ac; 10A
1	Heatsink
1	Potentiometer Knob
1	Enclosure

Now prepare your things and we'll design your power supply!

For those of you who would like to suggest a different component rating feel free to comment below, thanks!

Get to know Arduino

2012-09-29T22:10:00.001+08:00

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino is becoming ever so popular these days. With a growing community, there are tons of resources that even the complete newbie can be an expert in a matter of weeks. Just by searching the web you can find things from being innovative and creative to downright strange and amazing, and if you're interested in this kind of stuff then you should prepare yourself for lack of sleep and endless hours - not trying to make it work but - having fun!

"Arduino" is not available yet on the Philippine shores, maybe it won't be available, but note that i'm using quotes on is because what I'm talking about is the OFFICIAL ARDUINO board. Luckily, because Arduino is open-source the schematics and design can be seen and be able to make CLONES out of the board - meaning electronics companies can create their own "Arduino clones" or, for the complete DIYer's personal use, be able to make your own on a breadboard with the same functionality.

Fortunately, Alexan and E-Gizmo have created Arduino clones for the Filipino community to experience - The ACEduino and the Gizduino. Although I only have ACEduino with me the parts and features of both are pretty much the same.

Alexan made two kinds the ACEduino 328 which is perfect for starters, and for more power and flash memory there is the ACEduino MEGA 2560.

ACEduino MEGA 2560

From the Alexan site the specifications include 54 digital input/output pins, 14 of them are for PWM outputs or Pulse Width Modulation outputs. 16 Analog input pins usually for sensors and motors, and 3 UART or Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitters.

To further maximize the capability of your Arduino "Shields" are connected to it. Shields come in different functions but most of them are specifically designed to fit the Arduino. Although Arduinos work even without Shields, I found my first Arduino lessons easier to learn with the Training Shield.

Training Shield

The Training Shield on Alexan includes 8 LEDs, 1 RGB LED, a Buzzer, 2 Pushbuttons, a 3-Digit 7-Segment display, and a Temperature Sensor (DS18820). If you want to know which pins are connected to which components the pinouts can be found at the Alexan website for you to download. The Training Shield is just one of the many shields that you can use and incorporate in your Arduino - you can even make one yourself with a Prototype Shield.

It doesn't take long for the creative mind to build extraordinary things with the Arduino, the possibilities are endless if you think about it. But one important thing, and albeit the most important thing, that Arduino had taught me is that you are not alone in making your imagination come to life, helping fellow hackers and makers to learn and share ideas through experiences.

I think collaboration is the key to Arduino's success, so share your ideas and learn from others for you just might end up making something awesome.