Mark's Blog

Computer Security Day: Putting up barriers

Instructorman — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:36:29 GMT

Some years ago I developed a hardware solution for a young entrepreneur that was looking for a way to alert pet owners about dangerously high (or low) temperatures in the vicinity of their animals. The desire to build such a device was born out...(read more)

BenchVue Road Test: A problem

Instructorman — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 19:48:22 GMT

Last night I powered up all of my Keysight/Agilent gear(four instruments in total then started BenchVue Three of the four instruments were detected by BenchVue which up until this Road Test was normal My 53230A53230A counter though connected to...(read more)

Why do many hobbyist projects derail?

Instructorman — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 20:59:57 GMT

While cleaning out a corner of my basement to prepare for some renovations I came across a box full of electronic components that I hadn't looked at in years. Each part I picked up brought back a memory of its origin. Here was an HC11 eva...(read more)

PIC18F vs PSoC 4: A tale of two embedded project platforms

Instructorman — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 03:03:41 GMT

A story of embedded development on two platforms with similar goals In late 2013 I was blogging about creating a WS2811/WS2812 RGB LED controller using a PIC18F4520. My work life got fairly busy after Christmas and I dropped the ball on t...(read more)

Set backs and progress on developing a WS2811 LED string controller

Instructorman — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 04:39:45 GMT

First the progress I've developed solid PIC Basic Pro code that can reliably drive a 4m string of WS2811 RGB LEDs at 60 devices/m without spurious resets. I'm using PBPX 3.0.7.4 compiler, MPASMX assembler and a Microchip PICKIT 3 p...(read more)

How I learned embedded hardware and firmware - circa 1984

Instructorman — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:14:44 GMT

SO, I blew up some stuff by not paying attention to sound design principles...It appears I've blown up the first LED device in both of my LED strings. In my rush to experiment with the strings and the PIC driver code I neglected to place a ...(read more)

A brief update on the LED driver application

Instructorman — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 18:31:32 GMT

This weekend I successfully developed a coding approach that allowed me to drive the LED strings discussed in previous posts with a PIC microcontroller. My work with the Agilent 33522B ARB gave me enough insight into timing and power supply loa...(read more)

Generating pulse trains with Agilent BenchLink and the 33522B

Instructorman — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 16:43:07 GMT

In this post I provide details about the signal format used to program the WS2811 RGB LED driver. These details are needed to program appropriate pulse trains into the Agilent 33522B. I will also explain an interesting anomaly I discovere...(read more)

A practical application for the Agilent 33522B

Instructorman — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 00:47:28 GMT

I'd like to share a practical application for the arbitrary waveform (ARB) function in the Agilent 33522B. First, some background on the application. I'm working to design and build a controller for RGB LED strips, like the one shown in Fi...(read more)