Making cool electronics

How to configure Ubuntu to program STM32

OpenOCD installation The Open On-Chip Debugger (OpenOCD http://openocd.org/) aims to provide debugging, in-system programming and boundary-scan testing for embedded target devices. If you using Ubuntu or any Debian like OS, OpenOCD could be installed by running following command: sudo apt-get install openocd ARM toolchain installation Now we need compiler, linker and assembler (toolchain) for ARM Cortex architecture (https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded). sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-gcc-arm-embedded/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-embedded Eclipse First install Eclipse IDE (https://eclipse.org/). After installation run Eclipse Read more

By Electromake, ago

How to plot data from UART

Sometimes there is a need to visualize data from serial port in real time, like I had in my USB Accelerometer sensor. The goal can be reach hard way by writing your own software but there is no need to do so. Smart people already write many good and free solutions and in this post I want to show you how to use them in your electronic project. For these who want to code this Read more

By Electromake, ago

USB accelerometer sensor, tilt sensor

Nowadays everyone has accelerometer sensor in its own smartphone. It’s there for several reasons. First of all it’s used for detection of screen orientation relative to the gravity field. This is the sensor which gives your phone information when the screen should be switched from landscape mode to portrait. Beside this there are many other ideas how to use accelerometer. One of them is pedometer. An app or device which uses accelerometer to track your steps. Read more

By Electromake, ago

How to chose resistor for LED diode

LED diodes are non linear elements whom I-V characteristic depend from many external parameters such as temperature and manufacture. Mathematically I(U) dependence is described by Shockley diode equation. Unfortunately this exponential dependence, after adding resistor in series, becomes implicit function of current and supply voltage witch can be only solve numerically. That is why we have to simplify things for practical purposes. Here is useful table witch I use for fast choice of resistor for Read more

By Electromake, ago