Member's Forum - Recent Threads

Self-Introduction – My new chapter of learning, experimenting and building

richard.aguilar0305 — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 21:34:06 GMT

Hi everyone!

One of the main reasons why I joined the community is that, I’m genuinely excited to start learning and exploring new things again. I recently left my job to pursue my master’s degree, and for the first time in a while, I have the opportunity and time to dive into some of the bright and emerging ideas in engineering and technology that I’ve always been curious about.

I’m John by the way, a graduate student with a professional background in the power generation industry. My current interests are mainly around automation and robotics, especially Edge AI, machine learning, sensor integration and intelligent systems.

What excites me most is getting hands-on with technologies like microcontrollers, embedded systems, sensors, industrial I/O, machine vision and edge computing, and figuring out how they can be combined in meaningful ways. I’m especially interested in experimenting with systems that can sense what is happening around them, process that information locally and make useful decisions through automation or AI.

That is a big part of why this community caught my attention. I want to use this time to explore technologies I didn't always have the chance to work with professionally, learn from people who are actually building and testing things, and gradually turn some of my own ideas into working prototypes. I also hope my previous experiences in industrial environments can bring a practical perspective to some of those discussions and projects!

All the best to everyone,

JOHN

Farnell EU shopping policy changes

kk99 — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 11:10:19 GMT

It looks like there is a change related to the EU VAT Ordering. This means that from 1 July 2026 due to those EU regulations, you cannot create an order as a private customer without a valid EU vat number.

Introduction – Manufacturing, Automation, IIoT & Embedded Systems

CamiloSR2012 — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 18:51:26 GMT

Hi everyone,

I’m Camilo, a manufacturing and automation engineer based in Canada. My background spans process engineering, advanced manufacturing, Industry 4.0, IIoT, industrial data, automation, and applied AI.

I particularly enjoy projects that bridge software and the physical manufacturing environment: embedded systems, microcontrollers, industrial I/O, sensors, machine vision, edge computing, PLCs, Python, and manufacturing data systems.

I’m currently doing more hands-on experimentation with Arduino and industrial-style hardware, with a focus on understanding how embedded prototypes can be developed into robust solutions for real manufacturing environments.

I joined the element14 Community to learn from other engineers, exchange ideas, document some of my experiments, and contribute where my manufacturing and data background can be useful.

Looking forward to meeting everyone.

Little BEAST arrives

Qbit — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 11:46:41 GMT

Thank you Element14 specially JoRatcliffe and e14Liz for organising and managing interesting podcasts as Top Tech Voices , in whose season 2 episode 5, I had been

selected as winner of Arduino Uno Q(4gb).

It had arrived on 16 but I was not able to make a post I am really sorry for it.

Its is wonderful SBCs with the love of Arduino, so I can make lot of different projects with it but for now I will be using it in my build for Smart Home & Healthcare Challenge . You can see more

on how will I use it in the upcoming forum on the project.

Again great thanks to element14 for the Q.

How do you feel about the Ocarina of Time remake?

e14Liz — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:23:06 GMT

I very much enjoy that the newer character designs are inspired by puppets (●'◡'●) I played the original on the N64, strategising with my younger sibling on how the water temples ACTUALLY work. I'm interested to know how many of you have played a Legend of Zelda (LoZ) game before, and which one was your first and your favourite?

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

Even though the Legend of Zelda became a fast and firm favourite, my first experience with games was a Sega Mega Drive with Sonic the Hedgehog built into the console. I'm still not very good at it but it spring boarded my joy of video games (❁´◡`❁)

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

My latest console purchase was actually the 40th Anniversary LoZ Switch 2 (super jazzed btw). I just wanted to find out more about everyone else's thoughts and opinions on this!

www.youtube.com/watch

Spring Cleaning contest prize has arrived

colporteur — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 02:28:55 GMT

The shipper just delivered my prize selection from the Spring Cleaning Contest.

I dropped what I was working on and took this pic. Before this squirrel distracted me from what I am supposed to be working on, I put it back in the box.

This weekend I am sitting on a house boat with a drink in one hand and now a Multicomp Pro Intelligent Digital Multimeter 72-9380A in the other. At close to five hundred bucks retail on the Newark site, I may throw a life jacket on the bad boy just in case.

I'm not letting the little missus know I've stuffed this in my carry-all. What is that saying "It is faster to ask for forgiveness than permission."

Repairing a emerson M300 uni-Drive

acdc90 — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 08:37:12 GMT

Hello

I have been asked to look at 1 of these which has had a power surge ?

Yes they have ordered a new one BUT that is 6 weeks away

I have taken the top off and powered it up with out computer module

feeding 400v 3 phaze in and got 560v DC on rail

but the logic 24v and 12v output power supplies are pulsing

so far i am unable to read the numbers on 8 legged ic used to drive this supply

Has anyone worked on one of these

Before i start traceing the circuit around this ic

Hi

wchanengeta — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 05:23:27 GMT

Hey colleagues.

I am electronics engineer, excited to join the platform and I am a 'small' projects entusiast. I enjoy to watch people make interesting projects, learn more about tech and help those facing problems to figure out ways to make things work.

Happy to be here!!

Uno QQQQQQQQQQ arrives

embeddedguy — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 10:07:47 GMT

Thank you Element14 and specially 14Liz for sending these devices.

I am looking forward to creating some amazing projects and posts using these devices.

These prices are for Top tech voices and Nordic matter webinar with Finn from Nordic.

I have got

Arduino Uno Q - 4 GB version
nRF54L15-DK development kit

About to be blindsided by EU legislation?

stanto — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:35:51 GMT

I don't really listen to podcasts, however this one appeared with an alarming topic:

https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/the-raspberry-pi-podcast/bc453320-3200-013f-6004-02fd4c4e48d1/the-eu-cyber-resilience-act-what-it-means-for-raspberry-pi-and-you/2bdcb0a3-dd8c-4bf6-8dd9-1adf8245b871

The Cyber Resilience Act is about to change how every connected product gets built, sold and supported in the EU; and Raspberry Pi is no exception. In this episode, Tom Westcott, Matthew Lear and James Hughes sit down to unpack what the CRA actually requires, who it applies to, and what it means in practice for makers, developers and manufacturers building on Raspberry Pi.

They cover the basics of the legislation like secure-by-design requirements, vulnerability disclosure obligations, and the compliance deadlines heading into 2027 before getting into the part most people actually want to know: how Raspberry Pi helps you to be CRA compliant, and what that means for anyone building products on top of it.

Whether you're shipping a commercial product, running a small business, or just curious about how EU regulation reaches into the maker world, this conversation breaks down the legislation without the legal jargon.

In this episode:

What the Cyber Resilience Act is and why it exists
Who's actually in scope (spoiler: it's not just big manufacturers)
How Raspberry Pi is helping developers meet CRA requirements
Practical steps you can take now to get ahead of compliance deadlines

I'll save you a google search:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Resilience_Act

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/cyber-resilience-act

Something to follow when doing a design challenge? (I haven't fully read through it all yet)

hello from Seeed Studio, China

Tanakakari — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 02:16:37 GMT

hi I'm Asti, you might aslo call my Akari. I'm here to discover more interesting things about LoRa and meshtastic thing, or something might related with.

Meanwhile, I am also learning tinyML for environmental monitoring. If I have come to the right place, please give me more information about the relevant study materials!

Top Tech Voices Prizes

gordonmx — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 23:19:08 GMT

Today I received 2 prizes from the Top Tech Voices presentations. A RPI400 and a Arduino Uno. Thank you very much. Now to the workbench 8^.

gordonmx

Today's e14 swag delivery

beacon_dave — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:18:45 GMT

A package arrived here from e14Liz this morning containing some awesome swag from two e14 events which I had participated in:

Many thanks element14 !

Need to control diesel fuel injector using microcontroller

Harshan16 — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:57:27 GMT

Hi Guys,
Previously I have posted a question but due to the circuit diagram in the post, it deviated from the original question. If you haven't seen the previous post, it's fine. I'll explain everything clearly below.

I'm working on a project where I need to control a diesel injector. This is an academic project, if it goes well it shall get into industry level, so looking for a standard Good approach.

The diesel injector is activated by an Arduino(this is the initial setup, and will soon switch over to stm32). The diesel injector is outside the engine in a separate setup which gets supplied by a constant pressure fuel pump driven by an ac motor(const speed). I'm using a MOSFET to control the injector. The MOSFET I'm using is IRLZ44N. The drain of the MOSFET is connected to negative terminal of the injector and source of the MOSFET is connected to the negative terminal of the injector's power supply (i have added flyback diode for safety circuit for injector). The Arduino controls the injector via the gate pin of the MOSFET. The power supply for injector is 12v SMPS.

The Arduino gets signal from the injector's supply and control wires, we tapped these 2 wires and gave them to an optocoupler pc817. This optocoupler's output is given to the digital pin of Arduino. Arduino mirrors this signal to the gate pin of the MOSFET. You might wonder why I'm using Arduino, if the setup goes well, I will alter the pulse in future. So that's why I'm using it.

Issues faced:

1) this setup worked as intended, but after sometime, that is, after 2-3 weeks of testing this setup, the injector has gone. We didn't notice any smoke or smell, but the injector stopped actuating. We lost 2 injectors in this journey.

2) we started the engine and maintained in idling for 60seconds and started our injector setup, we collected around 90ml of fuel at idling, which feels abnormal.

Now, I need a reliable approach for this project. It would be really helpful if someone can come up with some idea for this.
Thank you in advance

Automotive electronics

Harshan16 — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 02:46:24 GMT

Hi there, I'm basically working in a project where we are building a dual fuel injection system. For prototyping we are tapping the injection pulse of a fuel injector of a running engine and reading it via optocoupler and actuating another injector by pulse read by a microcontroller. We used Arduino for first stage of prototype, where the Arduino gets digital input from the optocoupler and adjusts the pulse width and gives out as output in a digital pin, which is connected to a MOSFET's gate pin. The drain and source pin of the MOSFET are connected between the injector's control line.

But we need a more reliable approach, since the injector we are using is peak and hold diesel injector. Currently we referred few sources and built a circuit, which resembles something like in the image. But is there any better way to read the signal and controlling the injector pulses using a microcontroller? drive.google.com/.../view

Hello everyone!

LukaDev — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:25:48 GMT

I'm Luka, a old student from Germany with a passion for electronics, PCB design, embedded systems, FPGA development, bug bounty (e.g. 2025 Revolut first place in leaderboard) and open-source hardware .

Together with Marco, I'm currently building an open-source desktop CT scanner from scratch. It features a custom Rockchip + Kintex-7 FPGA mainboard, custom X-ray electronics, and a fully custom mechanical design.

Besides that, we also enjoy designing custom PCBs, embedded hardware, and other open-source electronics projects like e.g. this usb-c multi bus ft4232h adapter we made in 3 hours :

Just wanted to introduce myself here

Introduction

Mukku795 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 05:35:47 GMT

Hi everyone! My name is Mukesh, and I am an Electronics R&D Engineer. I work on designing and developing embedded systems, analog and digital electronics, medical devices, automotive electronics, and IoT-based solutions. My work involves everything from circuit design and PCB development to firmware programming, testing, and hardware debugging.

What brought me here is my passion for electronics and continuous learning. I enjoy building innovative hardware prototypes, exploring new technologies, and solving challenging engineering problems. I'm currently working on projects involving biomedical signal acquisition, EV electronics, embedded systems, and smart devices, and I'm always looking for better design approaches and ideas.

I'm excited to learn from this community, share my projects and experiences, and hopefully contribute to discussions that help others as well. Looking forward to connecting with you all!

Hello and Intro

nimion_art — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 18:20:55 GMT

Hi everyone! My name is Charlie and I am an Aerospace Engineer. For work, I do research in the field of aero/hydroacoustics.

What brought me here is my interest in electronics. As a personal project, I have built and programmed a vertical pen plotter from scratch, and I make artwork with it (check out nimion_art on instagram).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Charlie (@nimion_art)

I am planning to submit a post to the Show and Tell competition about it, and I have some other ideas that I hope to share in the near future. I look forward to learning from you all!

How do you find what you're looking for on the element14 Community?

cstanton — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 20:34:50 GMT

Once upon a time, using Google was frankly the easiest way to find what you wanted on the Community, but since we changed platforms, I'm wondering how much you may use the search box at the top?

So..

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

Bonus question, for clicking through to comment:

[Please visit the site to access the poll]

I need help on designing a handheld storage based on micro SD Card + QSPI interface + Wi-Fi data transfer

HKPhysicist — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 16:39:21 GMT

Hello Fellow Engineers and Experts,

I want to design a device to replace the super expensive iCloud or Gcloud digital monopoly. So you can download your beloved digital contents from your phone any time through Wi-Fi. Then, stack them up one by one infinitely under your desk.

It is my basic components:

micro SD Card
SQPI interface and controller
a MCU with SQPI peripheral, with SoC Wi-Fi
a built-in Li+ battery
Li+ charger chip
any more
There are already many USB storages for this purpose. So this method will not be my goal.

Please share your opinions. Perhaps, we can work together. 😉

Contacting the element14 Community Team

cstanton — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 01:33:13 GMT

Hey everyone,

As we're all swelteringly aware, it's the summer time, and during this period (and frankly, it could happen any time of the year) members of the e14 Community team may take time off work, where possible we let you know - but sometimes things get in the way and we're unable to let you know.

Well, to let you know, if you're trying to get in touch with a member of the team and you're not getting a response, you can either message me directly, or you can post in Feedback and Support by clicking on the "Report a Problem" button.

Now, a little trick, if you don't want your post to be public, then "Report a Problem" while you're not logged in, your message will be tucked away into an area where only the Community staff can see it, and provided you fill out your details correctly, we can reach out to you directly or get back to you.

This's also a good way to recover your account should anything be preventing you from accessing it, or if you want to report something in confidence to the team as a whole (including our development team).

A few of you may have questions about shipping of kit, updates on design challenges, or similar and you may usually reach out to the person running those (JoRatcliffe for Project14, Webinars and Design Challenges, OwainM for RoadTests, Essentials, Quizzes and eBooks, e14phil for element14 presents, soon e14Liz for shipping and some other fun things planned, and me for mostly everything else) but reaching out to Feedback and Support is always the option that will get you an answer (okay there are a few cases where you might not - I won't go into detail here but they're typically relating to account status, and as a reminder Reporting a Problem is for Community matters).

Thanks ya'all, stay frosty.

P.S. if we could, we'd have an 'out of office' option, but this is the next best thing.

a very basic duophonic synth 64 step sequencer

Knighthawk_140 — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:40:53 GMT

Boredom hit again, so last weekend i knocked up this, a basic duophonic synth 64 step sequencer

Built on the fly no diagrams, just used data sheets for IC pin locations.

It really is mad what one can do when boredom hits.

Duophonic playing two note's/Voices at same time.

one up from Monophonic = playing single note/voice

and not Polyphonic = playing three or more note's/Voices at same time

STM32F407, programmed within the Arduino IDE,

with 2 Sinple R-2R ladder DAC's, using 8bit shift register,

8x8 led matrix module,

tm1638 7seq display with 8 buttons

128x64 lcd.

Rotary encoder switch

My two basic 8bit DAC sound card's

My taty build

and here is a silly demo, of the old skool 8bit sounds, running through a 64 step sequence

youtube.com/.../WqYtZ8YPPl0

Hello

Em0ke — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:22:44 GMT

Hi,Hello everybody, this is Emoke, engineer in electronics and electricity. I hope to learn with you and spend good time

Element 14 top response to my AI query!

SensoredHacker0 — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:10:34 GMT

LoL its my post too.

Resisted the AI trend for weeks. Lasted longer than expected.

e14AndreeaT — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:40:08 GMT

After years of marketing, community programs, strategy decks, and approximately 47,000 meetings, I've finally achieved my ultimate form: Action Figure.

Features:

Professional poker face. Internal panic sold separately.
Unlimited meeting capacity
Delegates before anyone realizes they volunteered
Contains more ideas than the team has capacity for

Warning: Figure may spontaneously create roadmaps, campaign plans, and PowerPoint presentations.

*Disclaimer: content partially created with AI 😏

Asking community members to create an action figure might be a bit too much work, but I would love to hear about your super powers 😀