Microcontrollers, smart devices, sensors, everything related to today’s electronic technology.
I got a few esp8266 modules back in 2014, shortly after they’ve been announced on HackaDay. I didn’t have much time for them, being caught with other projects, up until recently when the portable environmental monitor project needed a versatile wireless communication mechanism, low powered and if possible at a decent price. The esp8266 seemed the best candidate, but like with everything in life where nothing comes free, getting it…
I got a few QVGA LCD’s with resistive touchscreen for an ongoing project. All that was left to do was putting the driver code together. The LCD code part was very much similar to my previous work on the ILI9163 but this time I went for faster SPI communication (also due to the bigger resolution). The microcontroller – an Atmega128 – uses normal SPI transfer and the external quartz crystal…
Introduction to STM32 microcontrollers shows how to setup the ide and toolchain to edit and compile STM32 apps on a MacOS workstation.
Pictures: An excellent miniature mica window Geiger tube, suitable for detecting Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation. As of 2015, it was selected for the uRADMonitor D series of radiation detectors. Details: Halogen quenched Geiger Muller tube, with a Mica end window making it suitable for detecting alpha beta and gamma radiation. Notes on sensitivity: The sensitivity of this miniature Geiger tube is amazing, placing it closeto the larger SBM-20. Most…
As a follow up to one of my earlier projects, the Variable regulated power supply, initially designed to deliver 0..30Volts at up to 10Amps, I have decided it was time for an upgrade. I kept the enclosure and the nice 250W toroidal transformer, and am reshaping everything as a new digital power supply with regulated voltage and current, short circuit protection, lcd display, buzzer for various alarms, temperature sensor on…
Introduction We’re used to Analog to Digital converters (ADC) in a variety of applications such as voltmeters, thermometers or various other sensors. Their purpose is translating a given signal to a numeric representation. To handle numeric data, we encode it in digital, meaning all content is expressed by sequences of 0 and 1. A set of data is said to be continuous if the elements belonging to the set can…
Note: there is a newer version of this project, KIT1.1, see it here If I was to give this project a version number, the closest match would be the uRADMonitor model B. Finally an open source compact radiation dosimeter, that has an LCD and thus allows mobile use, but also comes with an Ethernet adapter so it can do radiation monitoring (uRADMonitor compatible). Yet, this is not quite the uRADMonitor…
As a follow-up to Radu’s Atmega8 and enc28J60 for ethernet support article, I used the libraries to implement an ATmega8 UDP client using ENC28J60 that broadcasts a simple “Hello World” message over Ethernet. Circuit Diagram is exactly the same as simple web-server project(take a look at Schematic&Docs in the project folder). Do not forget to connect CS to PORTB2 if you are using Atmega8 and modify CS pin section in…
An open source code library for the ILI9163 LCD. Circuit diagram for connecting it to an ATmega128 and demo video are included.
Apparently I had no better inspiration on how to name this post. It all started with a nice sunny day, when I was in great shape for doing creative work. My plan was to do some research on the following uRADMonitor models B/C, to put everything together and start the design of the new device. With all the extra new features, it was clear I needed a microcontroller upgrade, from…
Eagle diagrams and instructions for building a DIY Development board featuring the powerful Atmega128 microcontroller
A robust regulated high voltage supply, an inverter (boost converter / step-up) 3V to 400V for portable applications.
Two battery operated, portable, electric fence designs using 555 and 556 timers.
Build a battery operated, compact high voltage inverter for Nixie tubes, neon bulbs or Geiger counters.
An article on the well known 555 timer and a few rather unknown applications.
An open source digital portable radiation dosimeter, with external connector for attaching various geiger tubes.
The SI-29BG comes with a good size / sensitivity ratio. These tubes are suitable for detecting beta and gamma radiation.
Mobile devices with embedded cameras can be used to detect x-rays.
A quick test with the combustible gas sensor, MQ-9B and an atmega8 microcontroller.
A simple rain sensor connected to an ATMega8, provides readings on the level of water detected on its surface.
I met some great people today, and I also got a wonderful device for my ongoing experiments as a gift: The UT50 Scintillation probe, manufactured by SC ICPM SA Romania. It features a huge NaI(TL) crystal, with a diameter of 5.5cm and 5.5cm length. The photomultiplier is a British EMI9656KB and the entire device is encapsulated in an aluminum modular cylinder of no more than 24cm total length and 1270g…
You’ve probably seen or done lots of cool microcontroller projects already, but did you ever consider adding permanent data storage to your projects? I did, and there are numerous advantages: saving data from sensors (data logger), saving configuration files, reading external content like images or songs, and so on! One thing is to connect an SD Card to an AVR microcontroller via SPI (relatively easy), a completely different thing is…
Wireless data transfer can be useful for a variety of projects. I stumbled upon a very low cost emitter+receiver modules pair, and planned to use it for some time now. There are a few variants available on the market, but they do quite the same thing, just the operating frequency might be different (315MHz / 418MHz / 433MHz/ 915MHz): The emitter usually has 3 pins (VCC->5V, GND, DATA), with a…
EDIT: there is a dedicated blog on this project, here. Make sure to follow it for latest news. A few days ago I announced my intention of creating my first crowd-funded project, but I didn’t tell you what was it about. Well, I’m planning quite a challenging project – to bring my uRADMonitor to a global scale, and create a network of distributed detectors, with data centralized on one server,…
Preparing for my first Kickstarter project . Let’s make it happen!
A digital counter with a nice LCD display that supports both incrementing and decrementing. Good for various purposes, in this case as a display to a coil winding machine.
The CDV-717 is a very high-range gamma radiation ionization chamber detecting instrument, manufactured by Victoreen back in 1964.
The CDV-750-5b Dosimeter Charger is a self contained battery-operated instrument.
Fixing a CDV700 dosimeter can be difficult because original replacement components are not an easy find.
