I recently stumbled upon a problem which I thought could be easily solved when I wanted to do design a PCB with an unusual board outline (e.g. a star-shaped board). Since I am not such a great artist when it comes to painting or drawing, I downloaded an .svg file of the shape from Wikipedia… Continue reading Getting a custom board outline from an .svg file into KiCad
Category: Electronics
Quick hack: Add native (user) USB to ST’s Nucleo boards
I recently bought myself one of ST’s cheap Nucleo development boards with an STM32F072RB controller on it to quickly start developing one of my projects. The microcontroller has native USB support even without an external clock which makes it quite attractive. The downside is that this board does not come with a USB connector that… Continue reading Quick hack: Add native (user) USB to ST’s Nucleo boards
Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 6: Validation and conclusion
This is a follow-up post to my previous project page Part 5 (PC software). This is the last post concerning this project. I have done some tests with the final hardware and software. Furthermore I have written a small conclusion to this project. Transient response An interesting test is the transient response on a sudden… Continue reading Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 6: Validation and conclusion
Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 5: PC software
This is a follow-up post to my previous project page Part 4 (Firmware). One way to interface with the active load device is to use a terminal program and query the state of the device or send commands to it manually. But this is of course very cumbersome and not very user-friendly. That’s why I… Continue reading Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 5: PC software
Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 4: Firmware
This is a follow-up post to my previous project page Part 3 (Schematic, layout and pictures). At this point the hardware development is finished and fortunately nothing blew up as I had plugged in a voltage source for the first time. 😉 But of course there is no functionality yet. The load sinks (nearly) no… Continue reading Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 4: Firmware
Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 3: Schematic, layout and pictures
This is a follow-up post to my previous project page Part 2 (Hardware design details). In this post I briefly present the full schematic and PCB layout of this project. As a proof that I actually built this device, there are also some pictures included at the end of the post. 😉 Full schematic and… Continue reading Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 3: Schematic, layout and pictures
Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 2: Hardware design details
This is a follow-up post to my previous project page Part 1 (Requirements). In the last part I laid out the requirements and specifications of my active load without going too much into detail. This is about to change while I write about the different implementation details. The main task of the active load is… Continue reading Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 2: Hardware design details
Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 1: Requirements
This time I would like to write about a project of mine: A (simple) active load with support from a microcontroller. There are times when you need a dummy load to test and validate some equipment or part of a schematic, e.g. a power supply. In the past I just used some power resistors as… Continue reading Project: Active load with microcontroller – Part 1: Requirements
Howto: Hand solder an MSOP IC with exposed pad
I recently had to solder a special MSOP IC with an exposed pad to a PCB. The device was a LT8610 which is a 2.5A synchronous step-down regulator. The exposed pad is needed to lower the thermal resistance and it is internally connected to ground. That’s why you should really solder the exposed pad to… Continue reading Howto: Hand solder an MSOP IC with exposed pad
Connecting an external RAM to a microcontroller the easy way through pin swapping
In some applications you need greater amounts of RAM. Microcontrollers like the STM32 only have around 20 to some hundred kilobytes of internal RAM. So what do you do if your application needs require some megabytes of RAM, for example in high speed data acquisition systems?