IMG_9347Oh the irony. “Waste from electric and electronic equipment”, does this imply waste is going to China, or that electric equipment coming from China are waste straightforward? x)

Posted on 7 June, 2013 by Henri | Leave a comment

Programming xmega with usbasp & avrdude

Posted on 11 May, 2013 by Henri

Few days ago I got package from Helsinki Hacklab. Some generic component stuff and a couple Atmel xmegas and breakout boards for them.IMG_8517 Nice bit more powerful MCU’s than normal atmegas & attinys, but they eat only up to 3.3v, so better not to kill them with 5V logic. Luckily most 5v logics detect 3.3v as high, and their higher output can be lowered with resistor divider. Programing these xmegas also differ from their li’l brothers. Xmegas use  PDI, which is kind of two wire system, constant clock signal and data I/O. I did not have expensive atmel programmer, so I improvised cheap ~2€ programmer using usbasp and avrdude using these patches. Continue reading →

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Debian and stuff

Posted on 27 April, 2013 by Henri

I have had little problem with operating systems. I haven’t found any I could like or use. After Ubuntu 9.10 lost it’s support, and next versions of *buntu distros were all bloated and ugly. Back then I did not have needed knowhow to use other linux or unix systems, so I stuck back to Windows. Anyway I have been experimenting with different OS’s for while now, NetBSD(I can’t get X working), FreeBSD(I can’t get gpu drivers working), Mint(bloated), Xubuntu(still bloated and xfce is terrible) and Haiku(which seems nice but is still heavily incomplete). Only operating system I could get working and bear was Debian Squeeze, because it still have lovely gnome 2, only desktop environment I ever have liked. Continue reading →

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Unitrex 1200 and lesson

Posted on 19 April, 2013 by Henri

Yesterday I found an old calculator from e-waste center, which caught my attention. At first glance I knew that this was not ordinary VFD or LED display desktop calculator. So I stuffed it into my bag and scurried back to home with my precious find. At home I plugged the calculator into the wall socket, which I probably shouldn’t have done. Of course it did not work. But no worries, what could I could not fix? Continue reading →

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Nixie clock firmware

Posted on 14 April, 2013 by Henri

Firmware for clock is in publishable condition at last. Now all major functions are implemented and no bugs are (yet) found. But there will be likely future versions with slight fixes and features. And yes, it is made with basic, terrible, horrible and not 1337 at all, but  it was easier and I could ask help from friend who have similarly constructed clock. There is also slight chance that I will translate this to avr gcc, but it would be big job, because it have not all functions and stuff. Continue reading →

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3×4 Keypad

Posted on 12 April, 2013 by Henri

Keypads are easy way to input information. I made one from old electronic calculator, and it may be used in SID  synth.IMG_7693 Continue reading →

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Dual buck converter

Posted on 10 April, 2013 by Henri

I had boring day, and was too lazy to do school works, so what else I could do but electronics? For next project I need power supply and due to poor efficiency of linear regulators, I choose to make an another switching regulator.

IMG_7658And there is the blurry picture. Similar construction to the nixie clock’s power supply, but this time double. Continue reading →

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Vintage 7-Segment displays

Posted on 17 March, 2013 by Henri

I found some old HP/Agilent LED displays. They are common anode type, and have DIP 14 packages. I haven’t seen these before in real life, and I think these are beautiful little displays.

IMG_7080

Continue reading →

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Nixie-clock update

Posted on 6 February, 2013 by Henri
Hole for ISP connector

This gallery contains 19 photos.

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iPod 5.5G

Posted on 26 January, 2013 by Henri

It’s been long time since I last wrote something. I got couple weeks ago or so an iPod 5.5G a.k.a iPod Video a.k.a iPod 5th Gen Late 2006 from someone I know from Helsinki Hacklab. It is 80GB model, and came with Rockbox already installed. I updated the rockbox and made theme for it.

IMG_5923

And beauty itself

Continue reading →

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