.:madworm:.'s photos

Minimal effort to get started with the Macroblock MBI5030 PWM LED driver. Comes with onboard LEDs, but can still drive external ones. All pins broken out. Only needs a microcontroller and a high-frequency grayscale clock. An AVR running at 16MHz can use its CLOCK-OUT pin for the latter. The chips 'speaks' an SPI-like protocol. Unfortunately some information is encoded in the timing of the LE input, so one cannot use fast hardware SPI for the hole transfer. The special sequences must be bit-banged. Nevertheless it is a rather affordable chip and does mostly what it should. There is an issue with the datasheet(s) that can be found on the web. The older ones document functions that definitely are not implemented in the current silicon.

Minimal effort to get started with the Macroblock MBI5030 PWM LED driver. Comes with onboard LEDs, but can still drive external ones. All pins broken out. Only needs a microcontroller and a high-frequency grayscale clock. An AVR running at 16MHz can use its CLOCK-OUT pin for the latter. The chips 'speaks' an SPI-like protocol. Unfortunately some information is encoded in the timing of the LE input, so one cannot use fast hardware SPI for the hole transfer. The special sequences must be bit-banged. Nevertheless it is a rather affordable chip and does mostly what it should. There is an issue with the datasheet(s) that can be found on the web. The older ones document functions that definitely are not implemented in the current silicon.

After hours (perceived) of filing and cursing I got the header to fit. Damn tolerances. The latest revision comes with slightly larger holes, so the issue should be solved.

Fed up with wiring up LEDs just for debugging code. Now it's just 'plug-n-play'. Shipping of the boards took 4 weeks again ;-( A few theories: 1) Mailing in December simply sucks 2) Someone at the customs office hates me 3) New regulations to pester people by delaying shipments 4) Extensive scanning of mail for illegal / hazardous substances 5) Some sort of conspiracy against purple PC-boards 6) All of the above A simple Arduino-library for the MBI5030 can be found on github .

Now please get lost. I want sun and warmth!

Now please get lost. I want sun and warmth!

Never go to the US of A without a stash of quarters! The most important thing to know is that coin-laundries take quarters - lots of them. Even community washing machines / dryers at apartment complexes require them. A must have.

I fell off my bike due to ice on the road. My left leg / hip took all the beating. Although I remember hitting the ground with my shoulder and head as well, nothing hurts there. Wearing a soft cap might have helped there and maybe my ribcage cushioned the fall. Tomorrow I'll go hunting for discoloured bruises.

when you mix bicycling and icy roads. Now both of my knees hurt... What a fortuitous coincidence that I have an appointment with my orthopaedic tomorrow. DUH.

Just a couple of days, and see how much trash accumulates. I hope the recycling works as we are made believe. And let's not forget about the smell. Rotting tuna is one of a kind... Hmmmmmm!

The MCP1804 is quite a good regulator, very low standby consumption, smaller footprint too. So I switched to that and shrunk the board by 2mm. Can't make it much smaller without moving to insanely small parts. Code and design files . Let's see how long I have to wait this time. On the positive side, OSHPARK shouldn't be affected by this year's Chinese New Year (10. and 11. Febr. 2013) and the accompanying celebrations.

For some reason this @#! chip has a 200mil wide body and not 150mil like 'everybody else'. Thanks to this modification it still fits ;-)

The ATtiny85 had to be forced to fit onto a standard (150mil wide) SO8 footprint. I don't feel like rerouting the board, so I choose to use 'the force'. You can take a look at an animated version on my blog. It's quite annoying ;-) It can adapted to work with any IR protocol, as it doesn't do any decoding. It only compares stored to measured patterns. There's a soft-UART in the code, so you can use it to print measured / unknown IR data and later add that to the known IR codes. Requirements: ISP programmer, suitable IDE to compile the code. It should also be possible to Arduino-ize the code and use the existing Tiny-core, but that is up to you ;-)

For some reason this @#! chip has a 200mil wide body and not 150mil like 'everybody else'. Thanks to this modification it still fits ;-)

Word of advice: take additional ear-plugs with you! The switching noise of an MRI scanner is insane. Dak dak dak dak zzzzzrrrrrmmmmm, Dak dak dak dak zzzzzrrrrrmmmmm, errrrp! --- Diagnosis (shortened): Bad news: 2nd to 3rd degree damage to the cartilage behind the kneecap + some sort of oedema + other minor stuff. Good news: No 'free particles' floating around and doing more damage.

MOSFETs in DPACK / TO-252 package.