Articles and news - Microcontrollers - 6

Piezoelectric buzzers find wide use as audible-signal generators because of their low power consumption and clear, penetrating sound. An external driver or a self-driven circuit that oscillates at the resonant frequency of the piezoelectric element can drive these buzzers...

Targeted for the smart home, this design leverages two PIC MCUs that use a wireless RF transmitter/receiver to control up to six relays and monitor two analog signals...

This 8051 microcontroller-based control circuit adjusts the speed of a small permanent-magnet dc motor via photosensors...

This article describes a portable breadboard-friendly adjustable power supply, designed as an ideal supply for Arduino projects and other low-power circuits. It is capable of providing from 0 V to 5.5 V at up to 0.5 A, and is powered by two rechargable Li-ion cells...

A recent Design Idea prompted me to offer the simpler solution that I used in a recent project. We needed a momentary power switch with processor supervision...

In this project, we will be using the ESP8266-01 Wi-Fi Development board to make a small IoT home automation that has Wi-Fi featured in it. The system operates on a local web server and is easy to use for the novice...

Laboratory data often appears as Gaussian curves, and today's laboratory data-acquisition software is designed to analyze these data to determine such things as peak location, amplitude, area, and width. A good test signal is useful in developing such software...

The most common method for interfacing multiple switches – multiplexing – allows for the connection of (N/2)2 switches with N microcontroller I/O lines. The method described below, which has its roots in an LED interface technique commonly known as “Charlieplexing,” makes it possible to interface...

Microchip grows its commitment to the 8-bit PIC and AVR MCUs by releasing five new product families and over 60 new devices...

You can use a microcontroller that includes an ADC to design a two-wire-plus-ground keyboard interface. For example, you can use a resistive voltage divider to identify a pressed key...