The final countdown...

Things are winding down, next Monday I'm going home for Thanksgiving Break and returning to school in time for 'dead week' which is the last week of classes before finals. After that is finals and I'm back home for Christmas. It's been very busy lately, but now there's a lull before Thanksgiving and then a crazy mad dash to the end. 

In other news, my workbench equipment acquiring is going well. I have my oscilloscope all set up, the 20MHz ProTEK P-3502C, that I got from a surplus store for $60, and tonight I eBay'd a bench power supply. HP 6253A, dual 20V, 3A supply, they can be tied together to get 40V, 3A or 20V, 6A, either way it's a total power output of 120 watts. It was $85 shipped, good deal.

So the total list:

• Base parts stock, this was handled by the Futurlec kits
• Oscilloscope, got it, need to get some probes though, two 1X and a 10X probe I think.
• Bench Supply, got it.
• Storage for parts, need to get either a big thing of drawers, or a bunch of plastic divider case things.
• Soldering iron, I have a cheap Radio Shack gun grip one now, but I want a controllable Weller eventually.
• Breadboards and wires, I have some, I need to get more
• Microcontrollers and programming equipment, I have some, I really need to get more
• Multimeter, right now I just have my $15 portable Radio Shack meter, which isn't bad but it's limiting, can't use better probes or get better readings, and no beep on continuity. I want a bench one, but I may settle for a good Fluke handheld if the desk one isn't an option. 

That's it, seems like a lot but I don't expect to get it all at once. Plus most of it is a one time investment, or a very long term investment. Once I get it all I'll have an excellent workbench for projects!

Til next time....

It's almost working....

This part of the project should be working shortly. However that's only half the battle. The easy half...

Keypad Interface Circuit

Here is the circuit interfacing the keypad for our project to the DE1 board. Matt Franklin wired it up and thinks it's a disaster. I think it looks a lot better than he thinks it does.

Our keys were sticky...

So we washed the keyboard... And now we're drying them.

Clarkson students are weird.

Can you tell what I'm working on?

Kudos to anyone who can tell me what this circuit is for?

Taking a break and having some fun...

I decided to take a break today, since I turned in my Advanced Digital Circuit Design Report this morning. I decided to break out SolidWorks and make another attempt at designing my perfect electronics workbench. Here is what I have so far.

Advanced Digital Circuit Design Project!

I'm almost done with the project! I'm doing final checks, code clean up and the report in LaTeX (visible on the screen on the right). My laptop is driving the board with Quartus II. Tomorrow morning the last of it is due, then I'm done... For this week.