Category: Electronics

August 20, 2013 / / Coding
August 20, 2013 / / Coding

6299imgresThis tutorial follows the same basic outline as this post on cu.rious.org but some things have changed since that was written such that it no longer works unmodified, and the various similar tutorials leave some bits out. My goal here is to get some custom code on the STM32F4DISCOVERY board as quickly as possible, hopefully paving the way in the near future for a full eclipse-based IDE setup.

December 5, 2012 / / Electronics

I pulled apart my car’s start/stop button today to redo some chipping paint that was bothering me. Naturally, I couldn’t stop at only the cosmetic plastic once I saw that there was a small PCB inside. There are two interesting things about this picture. First, look at the PCB: there are some electronics (and more than just regulators to drive the LED), an LED to illuminate the button, and nothing else.

November 2, 2012 / / Electronics

Being out in LA, I recently bought a car – I ended up with a used BMW. It’s pretty sweet, but I’m me so obviously I’ve moded just about everything I can without actually buying parts. Mostly that means software mods – windows up on key fob lock press, that sort of thing. But I’ve also been trying to mod bluetooth into it, and only recently had success. Tonight I got curious and took the module which controls bluetooth and USB aux-in apart (referred to as a MULF2 High Basis, it lives in the trunk and connects to a USB plug in the center console). Here’s what I found.

October 13, 2012 / / Electronics

I’ve had this traffic light sitting in the corner of our apartment for a while now – I’ve been meaning to do a traffic light project for a long time and I finally got one as a gift, so naturally it came out to Cali with me when I moved. But until now it’s just sat nicely in the corner, all lights on when plugged in and all lights off when not. Well, I just got my Bluetooth Low Energy shield from Seeed Studio in the other day, so naturally it was time for that to change.

September 30, 2012 / / Electronics
September 28, 2012 / / Electronics
September 20, 2012 / / Electronics

I think the purple soldermask and ENIG finish have gotten to me…

September 17, 2012 / / Electronics
September 17, 2012 / / Electronics

Level shifters are a fact of life for hobbyists working with different logic voltages in the same system. Many systems run on 3.3V, while many others run on 5V, so interfacing 3.3V logic with 5V logic is a very common problem. Lots of solutions exist.