Embedded Computing Design

As I write this, I’ve successfully crowdfunded my JC Pro Macro 2 (JCPM2) mechanical keypad on Kickstarter. I’m extremely proud of this computer interface device, and when this article is published you should still have a few days to get one yourself. It’s an expanded version of the mini keyboard and rotary controller, with the addition of more LED lighting, and additional GPIO breakout features.

When the original Raspberry Pi was released in 2012, it caused quite the stir, selling out in hours. Several years later, in 2015, Raspberry Pi released the scaled down Raspberry Pi Zero, which featured similar specs to the original, but at a mer $5 price tag–and was even included on the cover of their MagPi magazine. A WiFi-enabled ‘Zero was released in early 2017, further enhancing its capabilities.

EDA packages like KiCad, and the design of electrical circuits in general, are normally thought of as a 2D affair.

I²C also often spelled I2C, and (rarely) expanded out to its full “Inter-Integrated Circuit” moniker, is a device-to-device communication protocol invented by Philips Semiconductor (now NXP) in 1982.

Castellated holes on a PCB, also known as castellations or crenellations, are plated through holes on a PCB which are cut in half. Typically, these are applied to the outer edges of a board, and are used to solder one board on top of another.

Computing, in the sense of storing, routing, and manipulating data is, of course, a vast and interesting subject. At the end of the day however, I’d argue that one has to actually use this information for it to be useful. While this can mean providing information to humanity, in other cases the computer itself is tasked with manipulating our world directly through a variety of actuators and electro-mechanical apparatuses.

When it comes to tiny microcontroller development boards, there are a number of great options. I’m personally a big fan of the ATmega32U4-based Arduino Pro Micro which, among other functions, can emulate computer keyboard/mouse inputs as a human interface device (HID).

Most computer users interact with their device using a keyboard and mouse. Some of us have switched to a trackball-style input and/or a new keyboard better suited to one’s body style or use, but at the end of the day, what you normally buy online or from a brick-and-mortar store is designed to suit a large number of users. 

In a previous post, I outlined how you can manage and customize new symbols in KiCad, allowing you to accurately depict your circuit designs.

Jeremy shows an easy and fun way to create symbols in new libraires using KiCad.

When you purchase a PC fan for standard usage, it comes with a nice plug-in wiring harness that you simply connect to let it do its job... or so I assume.

If you have browsed online auction sites and/or various small electronics projects to any extent, there’s a good chance you have come across a .96” 128x64 pixel OLED display, based on the SSD1306 driver.

I now primarily work as a sort of tech journalist–documenting interesting projects and technology, while building a variety of projects that I can write about and sometimes sell. Before that, I spent well over a decade as an engineer working in manufacturing automation. In this arena, as in life, the universe, and everything, there comes a point where a “thing” works more or less as it did yesterday, but in a state that could be improved.

For somewhere around a decade, I have relied on streaming for the majority of my television watching. This meant a computer in the early days, along with a surround sound home theater setup. At some point, however, we simplified to a single Roku Player and the TVs built-in sound.

Arduino boards, and the Arduino IDE is wonderful for creating small snippets of code that can activate an LED, read a sensor, activate a servo, or any number of unique physical computing applications. Such actions generally start out simple–e.g. blinking an LED on a timer–but can eventually become quite complicated as programs expand and the programmer’s skills increase.

Today, wireless networking technologies like WiFi and Bluetooth have taken over a huge amount of the world’s short distance data transmission duties.

The “perfect workbench” is of course a matter of opinion and personal needs. At this point, however, I’ve used and built several, so I’ll say that at least qualifies me to throw my opinion out there. While striving toward the optimal workbench has been (and still is) an evolution, not a careful plan, here’s a few things to look for in your bench:

It’s no exaggeration to say that 2020 was a challenging year.

While the Raspberry Pi works extremely well in a “headless” mode without a monitor, setting this up can be a little tricky. In this article we’ll go over how to do so specifically under macOS, allowing you to get your RPi remote computing node up and running without using an external monitor whatsoever.

Today you likely take access to the Internet for granted, using your phone for short bits of communication, or a computer connected via a router and WiFi or a directly wired connection for more serious input.