Author Topic: Beginner Components?  (Read 29163 times)

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Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #50 on: February 24, 2015, 09:01:02 pm »
Well i'm sorry but unless you do things right they won't work! why the hell are you trying something as complicated as a variable frequency drive when you don't have micro-controller specific programming skills and you don't even know how a diode works even after reading about it. I'm sorry but we can't make you learn and there is no secret. Unless your going to do things properly and in some order then I'm sorry but there is nothing we can do.

you claim to know all about programming but don't understand the concept of PWM which is at the basis of controlling real world devices like motors with a digital microcontroller, so I suggest you stop thinking you can do anything in java and learn to program properly in C like everyone else does at this level of development and learn basic circuitry techniques. You seem to be blissfully unware of just how much you don't know (not that I'm an expert either) and yet there is no way to explain anything to you. For gods sake get the simplest beginner book and read it!

Sorry, but you don't seem to understand how programming languages work... (check it out: http://www.espruino.com/Reference#software) also, I was asking about the physical internals of how diodes work (not how they're applied and what the macro effects)...

Also, you either do not know any good part numbers for cheap inductors, or are being deliberately dense given I've specifically asked you like 4 times now...

I was under the impression PWM was duty cycle and htz as explained by sparkfun

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/pulse-width-modulation

if it's not, could you explain what it is?  Otherwise, could you stop commenting on my post?
« Last Edit: February 24, 2015, 09:03:49 pm by JacobEdward »
 

Offline rdl

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #51 on: February 24, 2015, 09:05:49 pm »

Inductors are usually very specific to the purpose of the circuit. Radio hobbyists often just wind their own. If you want a cheap inductor just take a piece of wire and wind it around something in a spiral. You can find instructions in this book.




 

Online Simon

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #52 on: February 24, 2015, 09:07:50 pm »
Take you pick: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xinductor.TRS0&_nkw=inductor&_sacat=0

Or as suggested just grab a length of wire and wind one, jeez let me guess you learnt all about programming on a PC and now that you have found you can program microcontrollers with the same language you think you can take on the world of electronics  :-DD
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #53 on: February 24, 2015, 09:18:21 pm »
Take you pick: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xinductor.TRS0&_nkw=inductor&_sacat=0

Or as suggested just grab a length of wire and wind one, jeez let me guess you learnt all about programming on a PC and now that you have found you can program microcontrollers with the same language you think you can take on the world of electronics  :-DD

Not sure what you have against Javascript, but it might be a good idea to look into, probably improve your productivity actually...

Btw, there's this sale on ebay that claims a photoresistor is an inductor... I already have photoresistors, but I wasn't aware they were also inductors (not sure what part is suppose to be a coil, or in the other sale I posted that looks a lot like a resistor too...)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Inductor-Sensor-20Pcs-Photo-Light-Sensitive-Resistor-Photoresistor-5516-GL5516-/201047174773?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ecf586e75

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-x-2-2uH-Inductor-Free-Shipping-/250887388813?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a6a0dbe8d
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #54 on: February 24, 2015, 09:20:04 pm »
Or as suggested just grab a length of wire and wind one, jeez let me guess you learnt all about programming on a PC and now that you have found you can program microcontrollers with the same language you think you can take on the world of electronics  :-DD

Btw, does it make sense that you as a moderator can be so flagrantly rude to someone on a forum but I'd bet the moment someone is even slightly rude to you, they get banned or whatever it is you do to them?
 

Online Simon

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #55 on: February 24, 2015, 09:22:02 pm »
Or as suggested just grab a length of wire and wind one, jeez let me guess you learnt all about programming on a PC and now that you have found you can program microcontrollers with the same language you think you can take on the world of electronics  :-DD

Btw, does it make sense that you as a moderator can be so flagrantly rude to someone on a forum but I'd bet the moment someone is even slightly rude to you, they get banned or whatever it is you do to them?

Actually no, you have continually asked the same questions despite being given answers because they were not the answers you wanted. Like any other member my patience has a limit.
 

Online Simon

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #56 on: February 24, 2015, 09:23:35 pm »
Take you pick: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xinductor.TRS0&_nkw=inductor&_sacat=0

Or as suggested just grab a length of wire and wind one, jeez let me guess you learnt all about programming on a PC and now that you have found you can program microcontrollers with the same language you think you can take on the world of electronics  :-DD

Not sure what you have against Javascript, but it might be a good idea to look into, probably improve your productivity actually...

Btw, there's this sale on ebay that claims a photoresistor is an inductor... I already have photoresistors, but I wasn't aware they were also inductors (not sure what part is suppose to be a coil, or in the other sale I posted that looks a lot like a resistor too...)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Inductor-Sensor-20Pcs-Photo-Light-Sensitive-Resistor-Photoresistor-5516-GL5516-/201047174773?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ecf586e75

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-x-2-2uH-Inductor-Free-Shipping-/250887388813?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a6a0dbe8d

Both listings are in China probably listed by people who can hardly speak English and do not understand what the listing is about.

There is no inductance intended in a photoresistor, obviously like all electronic components it will have some inductance but that is just the way of nature. The second listing was also done by a very competent person who thinks that they are going to sell more inductors if they point out the high-quality antistatic packaging they are using which is totally unnecessary and pointless the packaging inductors.
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #57 on: February 24, 2015, 09:25:02 pm »
Actually no, you have continually asked the same questions despite being given answers because they were not the answers you wanted. Like any other member my patience has a limit.

Actually, any other member (if the roles were reversed) would have been banned for loosing patience and continuing to add their abusive comments instead of just deciding to do something else...
 

Online Simon

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #58 on: February 24, 2015, 09:26:42 pm »
Actually no, you have continually asked the same questions despite being given answers because they were not the answers you wanted. Like any other member my patience has a limit.

Actually, any other member (if the roles were reversed) would have been banned for loosing patience and continuing to comment instead of just deciding to do something else instead of being abusive...

Oh you have that much experience of this forum do you ? I'd not have banned anyone in this situation for sure and the only other person that actively moderates on here is Dave
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #59 on: February 24, 2015, 09:27:53 pm »
Oh you have that much experience of this forum do you ? I'd not have banned anyone in this situation for sure and the only other person that actively moderates on here is Dave

Sure... either way, try finding something else to do instead of just being abusive
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #60 on: February 24, 2015, 09:37:58 pm »
Actually no, you have continually asked the same questions despite being given answers because they were not the answers you wanted. Like any other member my patience has a limit.

If you could copy / paste the answer to the question of if it's possible to connect an external ARM chip to a microcontroller and use the other chip as a 50MHtz signal generator (if you want to think of it that way), that would be great.
 

Online Zero999

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #61 on: February 24, 2015, 09:39:07 pm »
Your going about it the wrong way, there are numerous factors that make up an inductor: inductance, max current, self resonant frequency, resistance and I'm sure more, you can't just buy a few parts and expect to plug them into a circuit, design your circuit, work out what inductor you need and then get it.

I'm sure, but I'm still going to verify it empirically before I start memorizing crap out of a book... now if you know of a cheap part I can use to experiment with, that would be great.


Any part will do then, just grab something and experiment with it, say 100 uH.

We still don't know what signals your trying to produce, if you want 50MHz 50% duty then maybe but if your doing PWM then there is no straight answer. You insist on taking the easy route to program and that gets you no control over your hardware. You can use an 8MHz MCU to control a motor at 10'000 rpm........ you need to learn about the MCU hardware, MCU's are not computers, you can't relay on a virtually limitless processing resource.

Could you explain the difference between PWM and 50MHz with a 50% duty cycle?

It's definitely not the easy route to program, it's just I've already invested the time to learn a programming language and I'm not interested in learning another language when I already have a microcontroller that I know how to program... sorry if people don't like that it's possible to do this in languages other than C or assembly, but my microcontroller is fully capable of doing anything any other microcontroller is capable of doing apart from generating a 50Htz signal... which is why I'm asking this question, but after about 5 times I still haven't got a straight forward response...
JavaScript is a perfectly reasonable way to get into MCUs. Many other people here have started programming MCUs in other languages than C or assembly. BASIC is another common language which is supported by MCUs (remember using that Simon?). At some point you'll probably discover something you can't do in JavaScript and will need to learn C though.

Hz is a unit of frequency, which is the repetition rate. The period is the length of time it takes for a waveform to repeat itself and is equal to 1/frequency.

Duty cycle is how long the square wave is high vs how long it's low. A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 50% will be high for half second and low for half a second.  A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 25% will be high for 0.25s and low for 0.75s. In both cases the period will be 1 second.
 

Online Simon

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #62 on: February 24, 2015, 09:43:21 pm »
The correct answer is that you don't have a clue what your doing, if one arm chip running on java can't do it why should any other ? It's not about processing capacity. Have you read the chips datasheet, do you know at what frequency you can clock the counters and what resolution of PWM you want and more importantly what resolution of PWM you need to set.

Max frequency = clock frequency / resolution of PWM in bits

So say you have 8MHz clock with no pre-scaler and you want 8 bits of resolution or 256 PWM levels that means your maximum PWM output is 31.25 KHz

Do you understand how MCU counters and PWM output pins work ?
 

Online Simon

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #63 on: February 24, 2015, 09:49:00 pm »
Your going about it the wrong way, there are numerous factors that make up an inductor: inductance, max current, self resonant frequency, resistance and I'm sure more, you can't just buy a few parts and expect to plug them into a circuit, design your circuit, work out what inductor you need and then get it.

I'm sure, but I'm still going to verify it empirically before I start memorizing crap out of a book... now if you know of a cheap part I can use to experiment with, that would be great.


Any part will do then, just grab something and experiment with it, say 100 uH.

We still don't know what signals your trying to produce, if you want 50MHz 50% duty then maybe but if your doing PWM then there is no straight answer. You insist on taking the easy route to program and that gets you no control over your hardware. You can use an 8MHz MCU to control a motor at 10'000 rpm........ you need to learn about the MCU hardware, MCU's are not computers, you can't relay on a virtually limitless processing resource.

Could you explain the difference between PWM and 50MHz with a 50% duty cycle?

It's definitely not the easy route to program, it's just I've already invested the time to learn a programming language and I'm not interested in learning another language when I already have a microcontroller that I know how to program... sorry if people don't like that it's possible to do this in languages other than C or assembly, but my microcontroller is fully capable of doing anything any other microcontroller is capable of doing apart from generating a 50Htz signal... which is why I'm asking this question, but after about 5 times I still haven't got a straight forward response...
JavaScript is a perfectly reasonable way to get into MCUs. Many other people here have started programming MCUs in other languages than C or assembly. BASIC is another common language which is supported by MCUs (remember using that Simon?). At some point you'll probably discover something you can't do in JavaScript and will need to learn C though.

Hz is a unit of frequency, which is the repetition rate. The period is the length of time it takes for a waveform to repeat itself and is equal to 1/frequency.

Duty cycle is how long the square wave is high vs how long it's low. A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 50% will be high for half second and low for half a second.  A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 25% will be high for 0.25s and low for 0.75s. In both cases the period will be 1 second.

except someone seems to think he can work in the abstract layer of a language without any hardware understanding of the MCU hence the types of questions. The same would be valid for someone with C programming skills on a PC expecting to use an MCU with no appreciation for the hardware platform and thinking that does not matter and welcome to the arduino which is where i started in C but soon needing to have more control and understanding of the hardware I moved to native C. sure I've used basic, and how long did that last ? as long as it took me to find out that the IDE I was using was not much good and there was very little support for basic outside of that particular software i used. How much support is there for java on MCU's ?
 

Online Zero999

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #64 on: February 24, 2015, 09:50:42 pm »
Actually no, you have continually asked the same questions despite being given answers because they were not the answers you wanted. Like any other member my patience has a limit.

If you could copy / paste the answer to the question of if it's possible to connect an external ARM chip to a microcontroller and use the other chip as a 50MHtz signal generator (if you want to think of it that way), that would be great.
There's no simple answer to that question because you haven't provided enough information.

What do you mean by 50MHz signal?

Is it a sine wave, triange wave or squarewave?

The answer is yes, it is possible to connect another IC to a microcontroller and use it to generate a signal.
http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/AD9851.pdf
http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/AD9835.pdf
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #65 on: February 24, 2015, 10:03:30 pm »
JavaScript is a perfectly reasonable way to get into MCUs. Many other people here have started programming MCUs in other languages than C or assembly. BASIC is another common language which is supported by MCUs (remember using that Simon?). At some point you'll probably discover something you can't do in JavaScript and will need to learn C though.

Javascript is a turing complete language, there's nothing any other language can do that Javascript cannot do so if C can do it, then Javascript can... that said, what is something you expect I'll find that Javascript can't do?  The only thing so far is speed... hence the question  (thanks for actually providing an answer to it btw, not sure why that was so hard for Simon) javascript modules for espruino microcontroller

Hz is a unit of frequency, which is the repetition rate. The period is the length of time it takes for a waveform to repeat itself and is equal to 1/frequency.

Duty cycle is how long the square wave is high vs how long it's low. A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 50% will be high for half second and low for half a second.  A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 25% will be high for 0.25s and low for 0.75s. In both cases the period will be 1 second.

I'm aware of all of what you just wrote, my question was how does that differ from PWM?  I think this was more of Simon being a Jackass than it was about anything fundamentally wrong with what I was asking... I was just referring to it being a square wave since that's what MCU's typically output (though now that you mention it, it would probably be useful to be able to generate a sign wave as well, how would you do that?).
« Last Edit: February 24, 2015, 10:12:54 pm by JacobEdward »
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #66 on: February 24, 2015, 10:09:02 pm »
The answer is yes, it is possible to connect another IC to a microcontroller and use it to generate a signal.
http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/AD9851.pdf
http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/AD9835.pdf

Is it possible to block people on this forum?  Not particularly interested in reading comments from Simon if he's going to be abusive and deliberately unhelpful
 

Offline WattsUp

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #67 on: February 24, 2015, 10:31:58 pm »
 Sorry to break this up!
  In regard to your diode question, I am not in any way a professional, but their function is based upon a PN junction. Something about the electron flow? Anyway, try googling (a key part of most of my answer!) PN junctions to find out a bit more, and you will see they have other implementations. AfroTechMods on YouTube did a great, in-depth diode video if you want to learn more.

  On the topic of programming languages, you will find that JavaScript is an interpreted language, which is slower than a compiled language (as mentioned before). I have nothing against JavaScript and have used it extensively in web development, and fair play for wanting to use something you are comfortable with. However, you have to think about layers of abstractions (maybe look at the MIT Open courses online for more info), which are basically layers. As you add abstractions, the functionality is a higher level, and the task for you becomes simpler. You have to realise that you are further from the hardware when using JavaScript, which means it will run slower and have less control. It is unfair for people to say you have to learn C though, since even C is not quite as fast or low level as Assembly. All I am saying is that for certain tasks, you will find it easier to directly influence the hardware with C; also, you are severely limited to your choices of MCU, which is why professionals will use C or Assembly. You are also limited by what other people have done i.e. someone has to have written the module of code that takes your JavaScript and 'turns it into' machine code.

A final thing, PWM is a combination of what Hero999 wrote. It is just a way of analogue like control using digital signals, without having to use a DAC. A PWM signal is made up of these parts, and you will be able to identify them on an oscilloscope. You can get specific ICs for the job, as Hero999 said, but there is no point in using another MCU if it has the same capabilities as yours. Look in the datasheet of your MCU and take a peek at the PWM section. It'll probably be complicated but give it a go.

Ben
P.S. I apologise if some of this is not completely correct, I'm 14 and by no means a professional!
I'm trying out something new. Perspective Reviews. Comments and suggestions are appreciated over PM.
 

Offline Mechanical Menace

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #68 on: February 24, 2015, 10:32:24 pm »
Javascript is a turing complete language, there's nothing any other language can do that Javascript cannot do so if C can do it, then Javascript can...

In the sort of processing it can do, the sort of computational problems it can solve, yes. But...

Quote
that said, what is something you expect I'll find that Javascript can't do?

Fully access the memory map, use inline asm if needs be, efficiently handle memory usage, use peripherals in any way other than the person who wrote the JavaScript interpreter has thought of.
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Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #69 on: February 24, 2015, 10:54:30 pm »
Fully access the memory map, use inline asm if needs be, efficiently handle memory usage, use peripherals in any way other than the person who wrote the JavaScript interpreter has thought of.

It seems like that argument would also apply to assembly language, though, that get's me thinking about how exactly an assembly language would be written...
 

Offline rolycat

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #70 on: February 24, 2015, 10:59:11 pm »
Hz is a unit of frequency, which is the repetition rate. The period is the length of time it takes for a waveform to repeat itself and is equal to 1/frequency.

Duty cycle is how long the square wave is high vs how long it's low. A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 50% will be high for half second and low for half a second.  A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 25% will be high for 0.25s and low for 0.75s. In both cases the period will be 1 second.
I'm aware of all of what you just wrote, my question was how does that differ from PWM?
Varying the duty cycle of a square wave is much the same as modulating the width of the pulses - Pulse Width Modulation. The additional factor with PWM is that the duty cycle may change with each successive pulse. This will be the case when using PWM to generate sine waves as described below.

Quote
...I was just referring to it being a square wave since that's what MCU's typically output (though now that you mention it, it would probably be useful to be able to generate a sign wave as well, how would you do that?).
There are several ways, but probably the simplest way to do it with a standard microcontroller is by low-pass filtering a PWM signal - yet another application for this useful technique. The frequency of the PWM signal needs to be much higher than the frequency of the sine wave.

Incidentally, you do need to be careful with terminology when discussing electronics. A 'sign wave' is not the same thing as a sine wave, and there is no such physical quantity as "Htz". Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz).
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #71 on: February 24, 2015, 11:01:20 pm »
In regard to your diode question, I am not in any way a professional, but their function is based upon a PN junction. Something about the electron flow? Anyway, try googling (a key part of most of my answer!) PN junctions to find out a bit more, and you will see they have other implementations. AfroTechMods on YouTube did a great, in-depth diode video if you want to learn more.

I actually found a good description of how diodes work, thanks!

  On the topic of programming languages, you will find that JavaScript is an interpreted language, which is slower than a compiled language (as mentioned before).

Yea, but that seems to be the only real downside compared to assembly...

All I am saying is that for certain tasks, you will find it easier to directly influence the hardware with C

How do you know?

You can get specific ICs for the job, as Hero999 said, but there is no point in using another MCU if it has the same capabilities as yours.

If it had the same capabilities as mine, but wasn't interpreting Javascript and was only tasked with generating a 50Mhtz 50% duty cycle square wave and nothing else, are you saying that wouldn't work?
 

Offline BlueBill

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #72 on: February 24, 2015, 11:01:59 pm »
I've no idea why someone would start out with an Espruino. Seems like an odd choice for motor control.

Most folks by a wide margin cut their teeth on the Arduino. It has a C like syntax and a simple cross platform free IDE plus an endless amount of info about the thing. Espruino not so much.

I'm a PIC programmer myself, some folks might recall me as BlueRoomElectronics when I designed and sold PIC kits.

Anyways, having a selection of parts onhand is nice but you still need to learn how to use them. You'll also need equipment, e.g oscilloscope, multimeter, soldering station...

The OP seems obstinate in their choice of well... everything. That's not how you learn.
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #73 on: February 24, 2015, 11:03:04 pm »
Hz is a unit of frequency, which is the repetition rate. The period is the length of time it takes for a waveform to repeat itself and is equal to 1/frequency.

Duty cycle is how long the square wave is high vs how long it's low. A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 50% will be high for half second and low for half a second.  A square wave with a frequency of 1Hz and a duty cycle of 25% will be high for 0.25s and low for 0.75s. In both cases the period will be 1 second.
I'm aware of all of what you just wrote, my question was how does that differ from PWM?
Varying the duty cycle of a square wave is much the same as modulating the width of the pulses - Pulse Width Modulation. The additional factor with PWM is that the duty cycle may change with each successive pulse. This will be the case when using PWM to generate sine waves as described below.

Quote
...I was just referring to it being a square wave since that's what MCU's typically output (though now that you mention it, it would probably be useful to be able to generate a sign wave as well, how would you do that?).
There are several ways, but probably the simplest way to do it with a standard microcontroller is by low-pass filtering a PWM signal - yet another application for this useful technique. The frequency of the PWM signal needs to be much higher than the frequency of the sine wave.

Incidentally, you do need to be careful with terminology when discussing electronics. A 'sign wave' is not the same thing as a sine wave, and there is no such physical quantity as "Htz". Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz).

Thanks, sorry about the Htz thing lol
 

Offline JacobEdwardTopic starter

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Re: Beginner Components?
« Reply #74 on: February 24, 2015, 11:06:49 pm »
I've no idea why someone would start out with an Espruino. Seems like an odd choice for motor control.

Most folks by a wide margin cut their teeth on the Arduino. It has a C like syntax and a simple cross platform free IDE plus an endless amount of info about the thing. Espruino not so much.

I'm a PIC programmer myself, some folks might recall me as BlueRoomElectronics when I designed and sold PIC kits.

Anyways, having a selection of parts onhand is nice but you still need to learn how to use them. You'll also need equipment, e.g oscilloscope, multimeter, soldering station...

The OP seems obstinate in their choice of well... everything. That's not how you learn.

Well, I've been wanting to program things other than Microcontrollers and Javascript is just about the best language for as wide a variety of tasks that exists... I'm not starting out on Espruino, I started out on Javascript and then converted to Espruino for electrical stuff...

As far as being obstinate... to be completely honest, after explaining what I just said about 5 or 6 times, and having you people continually ask why... it sorta seems like the reverse is true... I don't need to learn another language since I have espruino, and if I don't have to, I'm not going to...
 


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