Electronics

Review: Freescale FRDM-KL25Z development platform for Kinetis L-Series MCUs

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The Driver Software Installation dialog that pops up when the development board is connected to the PC for the first time

Freescale’s new low-cost development platform FRDM-KL25Z featuring Freescale Semiconductor’s ARM® Cortex™-M0+ processor-based high performance, low-power Kinetis L series 32-bit MCUs has launched last Tuesday. Let’s check it out. The FRDM-KL25Z “Freedom” development platform is an extremely inexpensive development board with a Kinetis KL2 Family 32-bit ARM®CortexTM-M0+ MCU [1]. The Kinetis L-Series MCUs promise true 32-bit … [Read more…]

Review: Abracon Sync’n Go – Portable Precision Frequency Reference

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Top: Output signal, Bottom: FFT of the output signal. Clearly visible is the 10 MHz peak on the left. The tiny humps to the right are present even if no signal is connected to the scope and therefore to be assumed noise of the scope itself.

Most professional devices which require high accuracy and precision have an input for some sort of external frequency reference. The frequency 10 MHz is an industry standard particularly for test equipment. Most reference generators are designed for lab use and therefore are bulky and unsuitable for portable use. Abracon now offers a pocket-sized portable solution. … [Read more…]

Freescale’s Kinetis L-Series ARM® Cortex™-M0+ based MCUs

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Freescale announced a new line of ARM® Cortex™-M0+ based microcontrollers, the Kinetis L Series. The MCUs are supposed to offer the performance of a real 32-bit MCU at the price and energy rating of an 8-bit microcontroller. A tight budget and low power requirements used to limit design engineers to 8-bit and 16-bit MCUs. Freescale’s … [Read more…]

Microcontroller Controlled Police Strobe Light

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ATtiny45 based police strobe light circuit

Circuits with flashing LEDs and amazing color combinations are pretty popular. This is probably because they are not only simple but one can literally see the results instantly. Let’s have a look at a microcontroller controlled police strobe light using an ATtiny45 from Atmel. LED flashing circuits have been around for ages and probably always … [Read more…]

Resuscitate Atmel AVR from CKSEL Fuse-Bit Death

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Police strobe light prototype on breadboard

The most common way to ‘kill’ a Atmel AVR microcontroller is by programming fuse bits wrong. Sooner or later every Atmel AVR enthusiast will stumble across a fuse-bit related problem. The most common mistake, a wrong clock source selection through the CKSEL fuse-bit, can be fixed easily. The fuse-bits CKSEL0 through CKSEL3 let the microcontroller … [Read more…]