Savel brain dump in English!

I decided to “fast translate” my Lithuanian blog articles to English language. There is no special English posts here. This is done for English language readers- my Lithuanian language blog is almoust untranslatable by google translate- it is written in technical language and lots of slang words.

All articles are abridged. Also, there lots of interesting stuff in original comments section of Lithuanian version.

Sorry for grammar errors in English version. All translation is done “on the fly” without checking for grammar and spelling. Spelling error will lower google ratings, but this blog is not for google, but for people searching for information and ideas.

BTW, today is my coutry’s birthday! 25 years as we are from Russia… for second time. First time we run from them in 1918… I don’t want to get it for third time.

This is translation of old blog post from april 2008.

I am very happy, that exist such thing as Kynar wires… I used some other PCB for foreign software and messed up some port names in AVR ATMEGA controller. So I cut the traces and put Kynar wirewrap wires.

Also, I forget to place ISP connector in my PCB design. Where I was looking?! But at least it works and it is quite good capacitor meter project. I works better with big capacitors compared to old LC meter (lithuanian blog link).

This project is “borrowed” from site pontoppidan.info/lars/index.php.

Circuit diagram:

Source code: AVR capmeter source code.

This is abridged translation of old Lithuanian web blog article date from 2008.

I’ve sold several 5AR4 vacuum radio tubes in auction and received several virtual bucks. This was very small ammount of money, so I decided to buy somethis for fun. It was Acer n35 handheld computer, sold “as is”. As far I know, it is dead battery 🙂
So I payed about three vacuum tubes for this device:

At first this device was completely dead. But this happens, when you depleat liion battery- it locs and do not accept charge unless you give it “kick start” with external power supply.
So I dissasembled this handheld device and removed battery. Using external power supply I kickstarted cell to charging mode and finished charging using selfmade Liion charger.

Handheld computer is very weak and primitive… and using windows operating system. I found several software sources and installed navigation software.

As far for 2015: this device was used for some navigation and games. After some years it was abandonend and still sits in the drawer. BTW, the battery is the same and never locks again. Just connect external USB cable and after few minutes device boots up.

Original post from 2008, now there are good alternatives to this experiment.

There is one very usefull and practical instrument for hobbyist- logic analyser. This is just instrument to collect variuos multichannel data to computer ant then analyse it offline.
Some analysers were connected to computer LPT port, others are more sophisticated.
Some of electronic events are very fast and to catch them we need to quantize data very fast. FPGA based systems are the only cheap way to do it, especially if you have spare FPGA board.

I found in the internet some third party firmware and software for Altera DE2 board. And now sampling frequence is 100MHz. All data is transfered from FPGA board to “big” computer via serial cable (using selfmade USB serial cable. BTW this selfmade cable is much more reliable than many Chinese made cables).

It is DE1 FPGA board with Cyclone EP1C20F400C7 chip. I connected to other device using 80 lines IDE cable. (every second line of the cable is grounded).

I’ve tested this design with ZicPlay media player screen. (as for 2015 I never used this screen and all players moved to trash) I just wanted to peek to data to find what data is screen bus.

It is Zicplay device boot moment snapshot.

More information and all software/firmware are in Lithuanian blog page.

This is old post. Original post dated 2008.03. You can visit it at original page in Lithuanian blog. Also try to read comments to this blog post.

The old post is about LED light torch using lots of typical small LEDs to create light. But there are better LED diodes- high power ones. One of these diodes I bought in local shop. But seller could not tell me exact properties of the device- typical for our shops and for noname China products. The only thing I know about this device, that max current of the diode is 700mA (some other sources state something about 800mA).
Diode is mouted on a small heatsink, but this is only to spread heat to big real heatsink.
As it was quite expensive diode, I decided to use real LED driver chip for it. I decided to use TexasInstruments TPS61058/TPS61059 (SYNCHRONOUS BOOST CONVERTER WITH DOWN MODE HIGH POWER WHITE LED DRIVER). This chip, as stated in datasheet is usable with Liion battery and has all protections buil in.
Chip is very small, there is blog article in my web pages. Original Lithuaniain one and there is breef translation to English version.
Finished device looks like this:

After power up everything works very fine, but heat sink is too small. I am using only 570mA current (and the voltage drop on the diode is 3.37V. So it give us only 2W of power).

There was some problems in the design of this PCB. I did not managed to get higher current. There is quite complicated working current and voltage setting system using 5 resistors! I’ve set 0.7A current, but even using fancy startup schematics it didn’t start in full power. Maybe I used bad L component- it is critical.

Also, I’ve mae experiments with TPS61059 and it looks like that this chip is 0.5A max current… 🙂

Finished device is quite small and compact. As I used single side home made PCB it is a bit bigger. If I used double sided, everthing could be much better. (Check Lithuanian version and more recent articles- I am using professionally mande double side PCB and many of mu projects are rebuild using “real” PCBs)

Biggest devices are electrolitic capacitors (3x22uF) and inductor. Inductor is only 4.7uH but it must handle quite big currents. So it is not very small. I used thantalum and maybe alluminum polymer capacitors, few ceramic chips. Almoust all components are recycled.

LED is quite bright, but the light is not focused. The best way to get good torchlight is to used some optics to focus light to single spot.

Such focused light is way much better than older constructions.

My English version of blog is lagging. Lagging for more than 5 years. Always try to read Lithuanian version of blog using some translate program. Sorry for this lag.

Now, original posting from 2008…

Sometimes is very usefull to send data to you constructed devices of some other stuff using serial protocol. New computers ofter lack of serial ports and also, almoust all the time there is no need for real serial device with high voltage (+-12V) swing. Typical 21st century serial link is TTL or LVTTL.
For this purpose it is usefull FTDI Chip company’s product FT232. (There is new versions of the chip, but it is old post). It is compatible with USB2.0, theoretical max speed is about 3Mbit/s.

Circuit diagram is very simple- few resistors, capacitors, serial EPROM chip (no need in new chip) and 6MHz crystal oscillator.

I’ve used some PCB design distributed as “GNU”. (?)

It is using standard drivers from chip manufacturer’s site FTDI. All initial setting are programmed using same USB cable, so no need for external eprom programmer.

FT232 PCB and circuit diagram (schematics) for Cadsoft Eagle software.

Link to original Lithuanian site: http://www.vabolis.lt/2008/03/15/ft232/

Yeap, time passes and English translation is lagging very much. I’ve already sold this car… Now it is the end of 2011, original post date is 2008…

This is abstract from full Lithuanian article about connecting computer to automobile to check engine, brakes, air bad and other stuff.

As my car made some strange effects, I decided to build adapter and to check it. Also, this could be great article. Now it is cheaper to buy China made device.

Adapter converts K-Line, L-Line, ISO9141 to RS232

Components: MAX232, MC33199, 78L05, one transistor and small stuff.

Circuit:

Big image. Warning, ther is small error in image, but circuit is working! 🙂

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Dimmer, from the word “n. dim, v. to dim”. Simple device to make light of incandescence lamps lower. Also, used to slow down colector motors. All this started because Lithuanian internet is full of old soviet circuits with archaic components. Meanwhile “other” world is using much better way to dim lamps.

Circuit is copied from real world China made halogen desktop lamp. Power of the lamp was about 100W and this circuit is typical.

In real world this looks like:

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It looks like thaw. I think it is perfect time to dry some snow:

I wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!