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Tripet MHP 500 Part 1: Acquisition and First Look

This is the first of a series of probably four posts about the restoration of a Tripet MHP 500 surface grinder. The series came together a bit on the fly so the writeup is lagging behind the actual work. Everything shown here is already done and the machine is up and running.

ReflowR on indiegogo.com

This will be my shortest post ever. But I just spotted a project on indiegogo.com that I think is worth mentioning: A small and affordable tool to do reflow soldering. It’s basically a heating plate specifically designed for reflow soldering. So it can reproduce JEDEC temperature profiles, it does data logging and and you can even control it via a web interface if you spend an extra 9$ on the wifi upgrade.

The Art of Electronics - Third Edition

The world has been waiting since 1989, now it’s finally here. The 3rd edition of the classic book The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill is finally out. My (Amazon.de pre-ordered) copy just arrived today.

Arduino-based Inductance Meter

Incuctance meter in action. It displays the resonance frequency together with the inductance I’ve just finished a little Arduino project. It’s a shield for the Arduino Uno that lets you measure inductance. This is a functionality that I found missing in just about any digital multi meter. Yes, there are specialized LCR meters that let you measure inductance but they typically won’t measure voltages or currents. So I had to build my inductance meter myself.

Arduino Ultrasonic Anemometer Part 1: Getting started

This is the first of a series of posts to follow. I will describe my attempts to build an ultrasonic wind meter (anemometer) based on an Arduino Uno. By the time of writing, I have a working prototype but it will take me a while to catch up in this blog. So this is just the first post - more will follow soon.

Switch debouncing using 74HC14

This was one of the first PCBs I ever made myself as well my very first attempt at soldering SMD components. So if you were wondering why some of the copper on the right has not been removed - that’s why. At that time, I was not even using Eagle yet but some software called Sprint Layout. But this post is not really about this unimpressing board but about proper debouncing. Something I feel strongly about ;-)

Programming sockets for PIC microcontrollers

I regularly use PIC microcontrollers. I’ve tried some Atmel chips lately but I’m still by far most familiar with the PIC16 & PIC18 chip families. As you can see in my other posts, I tend to use SMD components but once in a while I need to program a DIP package.

Xilinx Prototyping Board

Some time ago I wanted to try out programming CPLDs in VHDL. I was entirely new to both of those topics and I didn’t have a real need for a CPLD at the time. So I built myself a nice little prototyping board for the Xilinx XC9500XL complete with some push buttons, LEDs a 7-segment display and a PIC16F688 used mainly as a clock source.