Tag Archives: Elektor

Check Your PCB Design Online Before Ordering

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Did you know Circuit Cellar’s parent company, Elektor, offers a standard PCB service? The PCB service was originally launched in 2009, and since then more than 3,000 users have been registered.

Who will benefit from the service? Ask yourself: Are you an electronics designer who occasionally designs a PCB and then sends it off to a PCB manufacturing house? If so, you’re likely familiar with that nagging feeling of uncertainty about the correctness of your production files. Did you check the Gerber files you uploaded? Are you sure that the PCB manufacturing house will interpret your board data properly?

The PCB Visualizer and Checker is a fully automated interactive web tool that enables you to review your design files before ordering the PCB. After uploading your design files, the tool analyzes them and shows you what the manufacturer sees. Possible design issues are highlighted and you’re provided insight into critical areas of the PCB production process. Your design is verified against your board specifications, and you’re provided a list of the modifications needed to get it ready for production. Finally, the visualizer renders the board as it will be shipped before production has even started!

For more information, check out the latest addition to the Elektor CircuitCellar PCB Service.

Elektor & element14 Partner for Embedded Linux Webinar at Electronica 2012

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Want to learn more about Embedded Linux? You’re in luck. On Wednesday, November 14, Elektor and Farnell/element14 will partner to run an informative webinar on the topic at Electronica 2012 in Munich, Germany. If you’re at the show, you can attend the recordings for free. Register before October 31 to get free Electronica entry tickets from Farnell/element14.

Attendees should go to the Farnell/element14 stand (Hall 5, Stand 558) for the Elektor Academy seminar, which will focus on the latest developments on the innovative Embedded Linux board. You can watch the presentation and ask the experts questions. The webinar will be recorded and webcast a bit later.

  • Presenter: Embedded Linux expert Benedict Sauter, the board’s designer
  • Description: Benedict Sauter will take you through the design and update us on the latest applications.
  • When: Wed, November 14, 2012
  • Time: 11:30 CET
  • Where: Farnell element14 stand (Messe München, Hall 5, Booth 558)
  • Language: English

Visit the element14 page about the Elektor Academy event for more information and to register for a free entry ticket.

CircuitCellar.com is an Elektor International Media publication.

Elektor Weekly Wrap-Up: Receiver Project, Arduino-Based Design, & More

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It’s officially summertime when Elektor’s special summer issue hits the newsstands. This year the team put together an attention-grabbing issue—complete with a redesigned layout—that’s packed with articles on projects such as a wearable distance-measuring device for swimmers, a music-making application with an Arduino, an “e-smog” detector, an innovative two-transistor regenerative receiver project, and more.

The two-transistor regenerative receiver

Editor-in-Chief Wisse Hettinga presents the issue in the following short video.

The 2012 summer issue is now available.

Elektor's 2012 summer issue

In other news, the Elektor team announced a new book on BASCOM-AVR is in the pipeline.

AVR microcontrollers are popular, easy to use and extremely versatile. Elektor magazine already produced a wealth of special applications and circuit boards based on ATmega and ATtiny controllers. These were mostly finished projects. In this book however the programming of these controllers is the foremost concern. BASCOM is an ideal tool for this. After a minimal preparation phase, you can start right away putting your own ideas into practice.

BASCOM and AVR microcontrollers — it’s an unbeatable team! Whatever you want to develop, in most cases the ATmega has everything you need on board. Ports, timers, A/D converters, PWM outputs and serial interfaces, RAM, flash ROM and EEPROM: everything is in plentiful supply, and with BASCOM their use is child’s play. More challenging peripherals like LCDs, RC5 and I2C can be used as well with just a handful of instructions. A wide hardware platform is available, too. Whether you’re using Atmel’s STK500 kit, the Elektor ATM18 or your own board, you can instantly turn the examples from this book into practice. For less exacting tasks controllers from the ATtiny are series used. That way, you can realize your own projects quickly and with little expense.

The companion CD-ROM with this book provides sample programs and software including BCAVRDMO, AVR STUDIO, LCDTOOLS, and TERMINAL.EXE.

Elektor members can preorder the book now.

CircuitCellar.com is an Elektor International Media publication.

 

Show Your Circuit Cellar, Hackspace, Design Space!

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Where do you design, hack, create, program, debug, and innovate? Do you work in a 20′ × 20′ space in your cellar? Do you share a small workspace in a lab at a university? Do you design in your dorm room? Do you work at your office after hours when the 9-to-5 employees are long gone? Have you built a “design cave” in your garage? Do you construct your projects at your local hackspace facility? We want to see where you design and program! Show us your personal circuit cellar or whatever you call your design space!

Email your pics, as well as a short description of the space, to editor at circuitcellar dot com.

We might feature your space on our website!

Check out these spaces:

Inside the Elektor lab in Limbricht, The Netherlands (November 2011)

 

 

Circuit Cellar columnist Robert Lacoste’s workspace in Chaville, France.

 

The Elektor Lab November 2011

Laser TV Project: BASCOM Programmers Wanted

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Do you have sound programming skills and an interest in assisting a fellow electronics designer with an creative image projection project? If so, the Laser TV Project posted on the “Elektor Projects” website is for you.

The Laser TV Project (Source: Elektor-Projects.com)

Website editor Clemens Valens writes:

Some people use electronics to build something they need, others just want to find out if something can be done. These projects are often the most fun to read about because of their unusual character and the creativity needed to accomplish the (sometimes bizarre) goal. The laser TV project posted on Elektor Projects is such a project. It is an attempt to project an image by means of 30 rotating mirrors mounted on a VHS head motor. Why you would want to do such a thing is not important, can it be done is the thing that matters.

According to the author the main challenge is the phase synchronization of the top plate on which the mirrors are mounted, and the author is looking for interested BASCOM programmers to develop the motor PLL (or a similar software solution). The motor rotates at 750 rpm and must be precisely synchronized to a pulse, which is available once per revolution.

Do you want to help with this project? Have you done something similar with Atmel and BASCOM? If so, go to Elektor-projects.com and help “hpt” with the project. You can also review other projects and vote. Your vote counts!

CircuitCellar.com and Elektor-projects.com are Elektor International Media publications.