Every Christmas I turn into a child again.
I have a hard time falling asleep. I wake up early in the morning to watch cartoons. And I am probably even more curious about the gifts under the tree than my two-year-old nephew.
I often get emails asking for project ideas.
So I thought I’d share a few Christmas circuit ideas today.
Oh man! When I made my first printed circuit board, I was so thrilled!
It was extremely satisfying to be able to touch my own circuit board design. And today it’s time you learn it too.
And the truth is that the process isn’t that hard. There are just a few steps you need to go through. And anyone can do it – even if you have no experience from before.
I was sitting in front of my computer. It was the first time ever, that I was looking at a datasheet. I didn’t understand anything. This was too hard. So I closed it.
But I tried again and again. And little by little, I started to get familiar with the information in the datasheet. And it was actually really exciting!
If you are a beginner, you might have experienced the same. The datasheet looks really complicated – and you just want to close it right away.
However, when you learn what to look for, the datasheet soon becomes your best friend.
To complete today’s part of the microcontroller tutorial – I have doubted myself, I’ve burned my finger and I’ve received a surprise bill from the customs.
But all in all, I’m very happy with the result. I made it work. And I love the feeling I get when I make something work!
We are now at part 5, the final part, of the microcontroller tutorial. Up until now we have learned:
Let’s get ready to circuit board desiiiiiiiiign!
We are now in the fourth part of the microcontroller tutorial. We have a microcontroller circuit diagram ready. It’s time to make a circuit board. I love this part. This is the “magical” step that takes the idea we started with and turns it into something real.
In this tutorial I will teach you how to build your own microcontroller circuit. This way, you can easily add microcontrollers to your own projects. We are now at part three of this tutorial.
In part one of the microcontroller tutorial, we looked at what a microcontroller is. We saw that a microcontroller is like a small computer, and that you can use it to build amazing things like cell phones or even your own handheld game-console.
Then in part two, we looked at different types of microcontrollers, and we chose one for our purpose. We chose the ATmega32U2 because we can program it through USB and it is reasonably easy to solder at home.
In this third part of the microcontroller tutorial, we are going to design our circuit from scratch. So we need to design a schematic diagram with all the components and connections necessary to make our circuit work.
Let’s build this thing!
In the previous part of the microcontroller tutorial series, we looked into the basics of microcontrollers.
Our goal is to build a microcontroller circuit that is as simple as possible. So that we can make it at home.
Next up in this tutorial is choosing a microcontroller. This can be hard! At least if you don’t know what you are doing. But after reading this second part, it will become easy ;)
This is my first of five posts in this microcontroller tutorial series. Throughout this tutorial, I will be building a microcontroller circuit while documenting the process. By following what I do, you can make your own at home.
My goal is to make a circuit that is as simple as possible, and which requires no external programmers or debuggers. You should be able to just plug it into a USB port on your computer and program it.
I have not planned this out in any way. I am just going to build it, and write about the process. Hopefully we’ll end up with a usable circuit.
Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Elias Bakken. He is not only a true master of electronics, he also masters the skill of mechanics. And I have to say I am jealous of his mechanical skills.
He is a good friend of mine and my old partner, so I’ve seen many of the amazing things he has built during his lifetime. We’ve also built quite a few things together.
Some of the things he has built lately are
Current, voltage and resistance are three important concepts in electronics. I didn’t have a clue about these things when I started out. But I could still build fun things, by following the circuit diagrams I found. I just didn’t know what was going on.
When I started learning about basic electricity in school, many pieces started to fall into place. I started understanding some of the explanations from the circuit diagrams I built.
I like to focus on the practical parts of electronics. But learning some theory as you progress is also really useful. So in today’s article you will learn the basics of current, voltage and resistance.
Electronics for beginners is a topic I love. There are too many people out there trying to preach that electronics is hard. Of course it takes time to become an expert. But you can start having fun, and build useful things pretty much right away. And it’s easy!
Wouldn’t it be cool to make something like a remote control or an amplifier? Or maybe something more advanced like a quadcopter or a mobile phone?
Do these steps, and you will be well on your way to building whatever gadget you are dreaming about.
Throughout my electronics career I have used several different soldering techniques. In the beginning I only used my soldering iron. I was able to do almost everything with my iron. But there are situations where using a different technique is much simpler.
So let’s have a look at different soldering techniques. And at the end of the article, I’ll include a fun video with some techniques I call guerrilla soldering. I bet you’ll never see these in a class at the university, haha :)
How can you make a circuit design of any idea you have, from scratch?
How can you take that idea you have in your head – and turn it into a schematic diagram?
How do you choose the right components, and put them together in the right way?
A lot of people have asked me these questions. Yesterday I had a glimpse of inspiration, so today I am going to tell you exactly how you can do this.
When I started learning about electronics, I never cared about goal setting…
I had no clue about what it was. As soon as I had an idea, I brought out my soldering iron and started to put things together. Even though that was fun, it wasn’t very efficient. And a lot of the times I never finished what I started…
It wasn’t until several years later that I stumbled upon a technique called SMART goal setting. And it was really a game changer.
SMART goal setting is super useful when you want to build electronic projects. It helps you clarify what you are trying to do. And it makes it much easier to estimate project costs, tasks that need to be completed and time needed to finish the project.
Sometimes I find myself bubbling with ideas for amazing projects to build!
But unfortunately this is not always the case… Sometimes I just can’t come up with a single idea. I’m just totally stuck. But over the years, I have armed myself with a secret weapon against it. I’ve learned to use brainstorming techniques.