« first day (903 days earlier)      last day (4331 days later) » 
00:00 - 20:0020:00 - 00:00

20:01
@NickHalden Launchpad's time in the sun is gone, with the price hike to $10. It's crossed the "trivial price, let's get a few" barrier.
@angelatlarge Did you get a chance to study up on MOSFETs driven from GPIOs? That schematic you were going to cobble up, needs cobbling up :-) Ref:
@AnindoGhosh I've bitten the bullet and gone for the SMD option! Above you say "and a 10 kOhm resistor for pull-down from Gate to Source" -- i am not following this -- is my circuit diagram above ok (apart from BJTs instead of MOSFETs)? What resistor settings should I use where? — Brad 29 mins ago
@AnindoGhosh True that. You know what you can do for me in exchange? Read this:
1
A: Cheapest way to add wifi to a project

angelatlargeA very cheap way to add WiFi to a project, is to use a WiFi router as WiFi hardware. The router needs to be not-so-new in order to be cheap, and must support Serial/USB or JTAG ports on board OpenWRT (DD-WRT may work too, but I haven't used DD-WRT for this purpose) See OpenWRT supported hardw...

@AnindoGhosh Unless you read it already :)
@angelatlarge I had, yes. I was out of votes yesterday, though. Fixed now. :-)
@angelatlarge I'm always a strong supporter of out of the box alternatives.
@AnindoGhosh I pretend to avoid repbegging, at least some of the time, but I am pretty proud of this idea and am worried that it will get lost.
Speaking of which, @Kortuk I liked your comment on the Excel as timing diagram generator thing.
@AnindoGhosh Wait, what comment?
20:11
@angelatlarge No, that was Kortuk - He spoke up in support of some chap who managed to get every purist "I'm a real EE" person's panties in a twist by suggesting that MS Excel is a perfectly usable way to generate timing diagrams.
@AnindoGhosh I didn't see the first person pronoun in there, that completely changes the meaning.
@angelatlarge Yeah, age begins to tell upon our vision at some stage.
@AnindoGhosh Do you want a snubber diode in the diagram?
@AnindoGhosh Never mind, stoopid question
@angelatlarge In for a penny...
they are leds
20:20
They are LEDs but the solution ought to be generic if all it takes is a diode, no?
Done
Well, the OP didn't ask for a generic solution...
@AnindoGhosh Am I free to go now?
@angelatlarge You're awesome. You will earn much good Karma over the years, and will have many giggling grandchildren playing at your knee some day.
@AnindoGhosh :)
20:36
@AnindoGhosh Why do you need the pull-down?
@angelatlarge Because otherwise, at power-up of the board, the gates will be floating, as the GPIOs start out high-impedance. This will cause the LEDs to all turn on, i.e. inrush current for all the LEDs plus all decoupling caps on the board, etc, therefore likely BOOM!
@AnindoGhosh Ah, for power-on purposes. **SHOOT! ** Forgot the current-limiting resitors. Should I edit or do you want to?
@angelatlarge Please. I'm struggling through some horrid stuff with Proteus right now, brain is fried.
@AnindoGhosh Done. Go. Approve.
@angelatlarge Done, thanks :-)
20:43
@AnindoGhosh awesome
21:01
I am out. L8tr people.
@angelatlarge Bye!
@AnindoGhosh Engineers - We should know that we are here to use what tools we have and get a job done at lowest cost possible. Religious devotion to tools has no place here.
@angelatlarge later
@Kortuk Agreed. Engineers are supposed to solve a problem by the most optimal means at hand, and if the problem isn't clearly stated in the first place, a good engineer decodes this based on experience, insight and some luck.
@Kortuk Be careful, though - or you might face the punishment of the thousand scoldings, from some people :-D
@AnindoGhosh Yes, often our jobs as engineers is to decode the specifications of a business guy.
21:17
BTW @Kortuk, Any experience with Proteus for PCB layout?
@AnindoGhosh Sorry, I know how to lay out a board, it is not something I have done heavily though :)
@Kortuk I just have simple queries... For now: How do I set a non-rectangular board shape in the board edge layer?
@AnindoGhosh :( I have never used that tool sorry. What i mean by having never done lots of layouts, I have had to fix dozens fix their layouts, but I have never really spent hours on end doing layouts and have never used serious serious tools to do them.
@Kortuk Well, I hope someone on here is familiar with this product. Thanks anyway :-)
@AnindoGhosh I really wish I could help :(
21:32
Hi everybody. I'm looking for a free electronic circuit simulator to test circuits with a 555 + speaker. do you have any suggestion?
has both speaker and 555 at the bottom of the parts
@tigrou Depends on what you are doing, but Circuitlab.com..... As nick said might get the job done.
ok thanks i'm trying it
@tigrou I hope it helps, it is very possible that this is not what you were planning to check. If you are looking for overdriving and such I am not sure it is what you want, but I will wish you luck.
even if its a web app, will i be able to hear sound from speaker ?
21:40
@tigrou No, you wont be able to hear sound from your speaker.
@tigrou That is what I thought, you might have something else you were intending. I have seen that on an iPad app before but I dont know of what would let you do that.
so in circuit lab, speaker just act as a resistor right ?
@tigrou I would have to go test voltage sources on it, but it should be a resistor in series with inductor as a simple model, I would think.
is "is there any free circuit simulators for doing that .... ?" a suitable question for electrical engineering?
21:57
@tigrou Asking for software for a specific task is really not a great question, sorry. A couple of the broad ones we have, but generally, getting it to play to your computer is a very very rare thing for an EE to do.
I can see how it would be fun, but it is not something I would ever do, sorry.
22:13
@tigrou ...why do you need that?
i'm a beginner i'd like to try some circuits in a interactive way
@tigrou usually people go the LED route
what do you mean exactly ?
@tigrou playing with blinking LEDs and such.
Off I go for a bit.
i have another question, not related at all to first one : i just discovered 555 IC component some days ago and how great it is (i'm a beginner). is there any other popular, cheap, very versatille IC component (like 555) i should have a look at ? (beside PICs)
22:23
@tigrou I find AVRs are easier than PICs just FYI
@tigrou are you familiar with standalone logic gates?
1) AVR => didn't know that. i will have a look :) 2) you mean a combination of AND and OR gates that fir in one chip ?
22:38
@tigrou well no usually it will be a package of like 4x 2 input NAND gates or something like that
@tigrou just out of curiosity, what age range are you in??
i'm 29
@tigrou oh, great! =)
I've been getting so jealous of these like 13 year old kids coming on here and asking beginner level electronics questions
Im just like "HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET INTRODUCED TO THIS STUFF AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE?!?!!?"
@tigrou and it just occurred to me: have you not heard of an arduino board? its a small development board based on an AVR microprocessor that has an IMMENSE following.
a truly unbelievable amount of tutorials online about how to do stuff with an arduino, ranging from basic to fairly advanced stuff
@NickHalden : english is not my primary language and maybe what i say contains lot of mistakes, poor expressions and feel like i'm 10 or something :)
@tigrou no i think you're alright
00:00 - 20:0020:00 - 00:00

« first day (903 days earlier)      last day (4331 days later) »