EEVblog - The Electronics Engineering Video Blog » design

EEVblog #232 – Lab Power Supply Design Part 5

EEVblog — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:54:25 +0000

Dave goes through the final base schematic for his Open Hardware lab power supply design.
Schematic is here:
http://eevblog.com/uploads/uSupplyBenchRevA.pdf

EEVblog #207 – CleverScope USB Oscilloscope (2 of 3)

EEVblog — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:02:35 +0000

Dave caught up with the designer of the Cleverscope, Bart Schroder at the Electronex show. He gives us some history on the company (from New Zealand) , the scope, a quick on the spot teardown, and what latest scope design he’s working on.

EEVblog #193 – FPGA Implementation Tutorial

EEVblog — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 00:23:31 +0000

Dave recently implemented an Actel Ignoo Nano and Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA into a design, so decided to share some rather random notes on how to implement the FPGA’s in this scenario.
From datasheet specs, traps for young players, global clocks, FPGA fabrics, core power supplies and decoupling, getting the schematic basics, JTAG and flash PROM interfaces and finally PCB fanout and routing of a tiny 0.4mm pitch BGA package.

EEVblog #174 – Renesas RX Design Contest Winners

EEVblog — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 23:41:13 +0000

Dave talks about the Top 3 winners in the Renesas RX Design Contest he was judging.
Check out the winners HERE:
http://www.renesasrulz.com/community/rx-contest

EEVblog #158 – AVR ISP MK2 + LM317 Regulator Tutorial

EEVblog — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:06:50 +0000

Who else but Dave can turn what was supposed to be a simple 2 minute AVR ISP hack video into a 30 minute episode on designing and measuring the performance of an LM317 voltage regulator circuit, with a bonus shootout between the Fluke 87V and the Gossen Metrahit XTRA multimeters?

EEVblog #155 – ITead Studio PCB Prototype Goof

EEVblog — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 02:35:23 +0000

Dave shares an experience with his new prototype PCB’s from ITead Studio.
Super awesomely cheap, but beware!
http://iteadstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=19

EEVblog #148 – Agilent 3000 X Series Infiniivision Oscilloscope Teardown

EEVblog — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 06:33:07 +0000

A teardown of the Agilent 3000 X Series infinivision oscolloscope.
What’s inside?
How different is it to the lower cost 2000 series?

EEVblog #145 – Agilent LAN/VGA Module Teardown

EEVblog — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 01:49:08 +0000

What’s inside the Agilent 2000/3000 Infiniivision X Series LAN/VGA module?
What do you get for your $400?

EEVblog #134 – The Maxim Manipulation

EEVblog — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 03:52:22 +0000

More dodgy components, this time from our friends at Maxim (c/o Motorola)

The DS2502 datasheet is HERE

UPDATE:
Maxim have admitted the problem and have fixed everything without fuss.

It turns out the firmware is intended for Motorola phone batteries:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5717307.html

EEVblog #131 – Live Show #7

EEVblog — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 01:55:30 +0000

Sorry, no chat window overlay, it got corrupted.
Mostly almost 2 hours of Q&A, so a good one to listen to instead of watching. Just start watching when you hear something interesting happen!, like when Dave opens up his 1980′s vintage LED clock project.

EEVblog #130 – The uCalc Credit Card Scientific Calculator / Computer

EEVblog — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:34:16 +0000

Dave describes the design of his open source hardware uCalc credit card sized calculator / computer.
Specifications: PIC 24F 16 bit Processor, 256KB Flash, 16KB SRAM, 64KB serial flash user memory, 3-Axis tilt sensor, Micro SD card, capacitive touch sensing keypad, 128×64 dot matrix display.

EEVblog #125 – Soup to Nuts with Free Software

EEVblog — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:39:33 +0000

A presentation by DJ Delorie called Soup to Nuts with Free Software. It highlights the current state of free open source software for end-to-end engineering and personal use. Operating systems, EDA tools, office tools etc
Recorded at the Renesas Devcon 2010 event.

EEVblog #122 – Renesas RX Design Contest Announcement

EEVblog — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:11:47 +0000

The announcement of the Renesas RX Design Contest at Devcon 2010.
Dave makes a BIG appearance about half way through.

http://www.renesasrulz.com/community/rx-contest

EEVblog #110 – Let’s Design a DC to DC Switchmode Converter

EEVblog — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:22:16 +0000

Dave takes you step-by-step through designing a DC-DC converter using the venerable MC34063. And then he build it and checks the performance.

An online calculator is here:
http://dics.voicecontrol.ro/tutorials/mc34063/

EEVblog #109 – Amazon Kindle 3 3G/GSM/WiFi 6″ TEARDOWN

EEVblog — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:27:50 +0000

Dave shows you how to take apart the new Amazon Kindle 3 3rd Generation 3G/GSM/WiFI Ebook reader, and examines and discusses the circuitry, assembly, and build quality.
And hackers can get excited about the accessible ARM JTAG port.

EEVblog #106 – Top 5 Tips To Bring Your Product to Market

EEVblog — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:58:28 +0000

Are you are a hobbyist, hacker, maker, or garage engineer with a great product idea?
Dave gives you his Top 5 tips for bringing your product to market.
And a bonus Top 5 reasons to avoid patents.
Copyright, Marketing, Advertising, Protection, and Creative Commons Open Source all get a look in.

Watch all the Patent and Invention ads ironically popup over this video!

The Creative Commons licenses available:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses

EEVblog #105 – Electronics Thermal Heatsink Design Tutorial

EEVblog — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:44:43 +0000

A follow on from some of the recent blogs that have involved basic thermal heatsink calculation. This time around Dave takes you though the basic theory of thermal design and how heatsink calculations work. Then there are some real world temperature measurements to see how close to the theory we get.

How do you read a heatsink thermal response graph? What is emissivity? It’s all here in thermal design 101.

EEVblog #102 – DIY Constant Current Dummy Load for Power Supply and Battery Testing

EEVblog — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 05:54:39 +0000

Dave grabs a few junkbox parts and builds a useful constant current load for switch mode power supply, battery testing, and other applications.

EEVblog #98 – Microsoft InstaLoad Battery Technology – Patent Busting Time?

EEVblog — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:40:24 +0000

Microsoft’s new Instaload battery technology allows batteries to be inserted into a product either way around.
Is it one of those brilliant “why didn’t anyone think of that before” moments, or just another silly patent on a really obvious idea?
Is it workable in practice?
Can YOU bust the patent by finding prior art before 2006?

See the Microsoft Patent here:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=hVXGAAAAEBAJ

OR DOWNLOAD THE FULL PDF PATENT HERE: http://www.eevblog.com/files/Microsoft%20Instaload%20Patent%20US7527893.pdf

You can get Dave’s T-Shirt here:
http://www.eevblog.com/store

EEVblog #95 – Linear Regulators, Closed Loops, Simulations, & Brand Shenanigans

EEVblog — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:17:43 +0000

A bit of a follow-on from the linear regular episode. Dave dances with a simple linear closed loop circuit he built, and bodges it up in LTspice to get a remarkably consistent result.
Not really a tutorial, just a few random tidbits.

EEVblog #94 – Near Death Multimeter Experience

EEVblog — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:57:02 +0000

Dave was looking forward to reviewing the new Extech RC200 SMD Tweezer Multimeter, until the damn thing tried to kill him. Now he’s, well, kinda mad!…

The Cryrustek ES51928 DMM Chip: www.cyrustek.com.tw/spec/ES51928.pdf

EEVblog #93 – PCB Autorouters Suck

EEVblog — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 01:49:42 +0000

Drive time rant again.
Dave begs beginners not to use PCB autorouters, and questions why the low end EDA CAD packages even bother to have them.

Product Design FAIL – IDEAL Multimeter – Redux

EEVblog — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 07:51:30 +0000

Is the bad design of the IDEAL multimeter tilting bail really that a-typical? Should you expect to be able to poke the buttons on a multimeter while it’s standing up?
Dave does some comparisons to find out.

Product Design FAIL – IDEAL Multimeter

EEVblog — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:48:18 +0000

Bad Product Design 101:
How to screw up your product with a simple design oversight.
The IDEAL brand 61-342 looked like a nice multimeter until Dave tried to actually use it and discovered an epic product design FAIL!

EEVblog #88 – There’s More To Electronics Than Just Circuit Design

EEVblog — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:53:29 +0000

Drive time rant. Dave talks about how circuit design and prototyping can often come last in the design process. And talk on the upcoming live EEVblog show.

EEVblog #87 – Let’s hop on the Electronics Design Merry-Go-Round

EEVblog — Sun, 16 May 2010 06:12:04 +0000

Dave demonstrates how much fussing around can be involved in selecting just a couple of cost optimised parts for a new design, using Digikey, Mouser, FindChips, Octopart and Atmel websites.

EEVblog #85 – High Voltage Oscilloscope Probe Design

EEVblog — Sat, 08 May 2010 04:15:19 +0000

Doug Ford shows us how he designed his own 1000:1 high voltage oscilloscope probe.
http://www.dfad.com.au

and the Oscilloscope probe tutorial:
http://dfad.com.au/links/THE%20SECRET%20WORLD%20OF%20PROBES%20OCt09.pdf

EEVblog #73 – How to screw up your winning product

EEVblog — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:39:04 +0000

Another random drive-time rant.
Dave rants about how dickhead marketing changes can screw up your winning product.

The Tropicana Story:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/archives/2009/04/tropicana_fiasc.html
and
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/linda-tischler/design-times/never-mind-pepsi-pulls-much-loathed-tropicana-packaging
and
http://www.johnmamus.com/designeverything/2009/01/tropicana-design-critique.html

EEVblog #72 – Let’s Design a Product

EEVblog — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:56:05 +0000

In this supersized lecture length episode, Dave foolishly attempts to explain how to design an example product (the uCurrent) from start to finish.

Read the FULL ARTICLE.
The uCurrent WEB PAGE

EEVblog #69 – Sex Toys, Telescopes, Cable TV, UHF Modulation, Renewable Energy, & Silly Shower Taps

EEVblog — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:27:09 +0000

Dave goes on holidays to Hawaii and rants a little bit about a variety of things, yet ultimately manages to tie Sex Toys, big Telescopes, Cable TV, NTSC, UHF Modulation, Renewable Power Generation, and bad product design together in the one blog.

EEVblog #61 – Crystal Oscillator Drift

EEVblog — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:43:44 +0000

Dave explains the what how and why of measuring crystal clock oscillator drift over time.

The Clock Drift PCBs

Real data collected with the sine fit envelope.
And results showing the same characteristic result over a slow temperature ramp.

EEVblog #53 – Mr Murphy and Microchip PIC Silicon Bugs

EEVblog — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:36:38 +0000

Dave tangles with Murphy’s Law and Microchip silicon bugs with his latest PIC project.

The PIC24FJ256 errata

And that Jim’s Mowing Franchise looks pretty tempting.

EEVblog #48 – Solar Power Hope

EEVblog — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:45:44 +0000

Can solar power hope beat out the engineering reality for Dave’s latest project?
Was Doc Brown right?

Solar Cell DATASHEET

EEVblog #28 – Product design drives me NUTS!

EEVblog — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:18:15 +0000

Dave goes nuts over dodgy product design decisions in Canon DV camcorders, Fluke multimeters, Timex watches, Princeton Tec LED lights, and PVR’s.
And how cool would it be to design farting gnomes?

EEVblog #18 – The Garmin Etrex GPS investigated

EEVblog — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:12:43 +0000

How can a consumer electronics product last on the shelf for more than 10 years? The Garmin Etrex GPS investigated.

EEVblog #11 Part 2 of 2 – DIY product design

EEVblog — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:39:27 +0000

EEVblog #11 Part 1 of 2 – DIY product design

EEVblog — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:37:25 +0000

The Art of Electronics book review, and talk about DIY product design.

EEVblog #8 Part 1 of 2 – Graphical LCD display development

EEVblog — Sun, 10 May 2009 02:36:37 +0000

Graphical LCD display development and PIC demo board stories.

EEVblog #6 – Part 2 of 2 – Why cheap Chinese Multimeters suck

EEVblog — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:19:30 +0000

Why cheap Chinese Multimeters suck.

EEVblog #4 – Low Power Calculator Design and FPGAs

EEVblog — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:07:57 +0000

Dodgy low power calculator design, Annoying FPGA’s, LCD’s, & Mr Bean

EEVblog #4 Podcast

EEVBlog #2 – Burden Voltage and HP Multimeter Review

EEVblog — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:34:20 +0000

Black Magic, Burden Voltage, FindChips.com, ThisIsANT.com, Retro Review

EEVblog #2 Podcast