Castells

May 2, 2016 · 2:21 pm

Create a module with XCircuit

I discovered XCircuit when looking for an easy and quick way to generate a schematic.
Since I am not going to simulate it, it would be enough to have a vector design program like Inkscape, but it’s never too late to learn a tool that may prove useful in the future.

There are other bigger, better, stronger EDA tools: Geda, KiCAD, EagleCAD… but I settled for something designed for publications.

(…)program for drawing publishable-quality electrical circuit schematic diagrams and related figures(…)
— XCircuit website

In this post you’ll find a quick overview of XCircuit, and how to create a module with it.

continue please

Arduino RTClib explained

One of the main functionalities of the clock will be… suprise surprise, keep track of time!

For this task we’ll interface with a DS1307 RTC using the RTClib. You can just include that library and forget how it works. But that’s not the way this blog works. Let’s dive a little deeper.

How arduino RTClib works

4 Comments

Filed under code

Tagged as arduino, clock, tinyRTC

March 18, 2016 · 5:58 pm

A 3×3 font for Led Matrices

fontIcon

For the clock project I require text to appear in a small container, that is 4×4.

Since in this 4×4 I have to add vertical and horizontal spacing this ends with a 3×3 font.

Never in my life I designed a font, and if you check my hand writing… it is horrible. Luckily 3×3 only leads up to 2^9 options, 512 different characters, and I believed I could handle this.

After writing the font in a squared notebook, I checked that other fronts already exist, and, unsurprisingly they were very similar to mine.

Show me your font

ST HAL I2C address (SHIFTED!)

stlogo

Quick note, for those who might be banging their head, like I did.

ST HAL library 7 bit I2C address has to be shifted before passed to their functions.

EDIT: Let me google that for you situation. I’ve been working with the official ST documentation, when I just had to google to find this beautiful blog post from 2 years ago.

Explanation

Arduino Clock wiring

Before any soldering or programming happens at all, I’ll need to have a general idea of what connects where.

This post presents the schematic for the Secret Santa Clock and a quick explanation of each “module” of the system. Everything from a bird’s-eye perspective that is enough for you to reproduce it.

show me the schematics

3 Comments

Filed under DIY, electronic

Tagged as arduino, DIY, schematics, tinyRTC

January 20, 2016 · 5:01 am

Arduino Clock Project (Overview)

Back in business, I am alive and well, and working in an embedded software company.

For Christmas we play “secret Santa” with my family, and this year I was going to take the crown home with me. We only have one rule, and this is: “you have to do it yourself”.

I had some spare parts from past projects (or tinkering) and a rough idea of what to do: a calendar clock. And here we have the first post describing how I created the clock.

This post is just the overall design. Kind of an overview of what the clock will do, for more “meaty” content stay tuned, I plan on writing posts about each aspect:

Wiring the DIY clock.
A 3×3 font for LED matrix displays.
Programming the DIY clock.

Arduino and tinyRTC
Arduino and 4 led matrices
Arduino clock software

Casing the DIY clock.

As you can see, I am mostly software oriented (as usual :-D)

check out the design overview

1 Comment

Filed under DIY, electronic

Tagged as arduino, clock, electronics, embedded

Castells

Create a module with XCircuit

Arduino RTClib explained

A 3×3 font for Led Matrices

ST HAL I2C address (SHIFTED!)

Arduino Clock wiring

Arduino Clock Project (Overview)

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