the Open Source hardware thread

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Then Y U No like 80% of your family

For once, I thought you were going to troll that you actually know more electronics than you claim you know

No

I used to play around with dad's toolkit and flashed whole main with wrong connection on a bulb. I was at class 5 or something then.

Gradually I found my interest on Computers (Specially Software ).

That's why I'm here to seek help from all of you. As most of them are into Electrical and don't know these things.

But in digital electronics there are only two people in my family, and in company they do all these I know, but it's kinda odd to ask them every single thing. So I thought of learning the basics myself from these videos.

 

[Mr.Kickass]

But in digital electronics there are only two people...

What a symmetry btw !

I think you have an advantage here. You like software but have a wealth of family knowledge to draw from. Electronics is actually a very large field. The major areas of study include(snap taken straight out of the book written for beginners, Electronics Explained by Louis Frenzel Page 4, Chapter 1)

Spoiler

[IMGG]*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12502&d=1382018648[/IMGG]

There is just so much to learn. Most people learn microcontrollers. You already have coding experience which is why popular options like embedded systems suits you. Once you get past this elementary phase of learning, you are on your own.

Still, if one wants to master every area then I sincerely wish that person a very long life

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

^^Yeah I understand that

As my dad used to work on Kolaghat Power Plant so his area and my other two uncle's area is different, as they work on BPL Medicare and deals with Medical Equipment Fixing (just like TV, Radio and all).

One of my maternal uncle have his shop of 1st category in the image i.e. Fixing TV, Radio etc. And another maternal uncle is into Tehri Power Project, dad used to say he works on 800KVA Phase or something like that.

Two of my cousin also in the same field of working on Light, Fan, Fridge, Wiring the House and all

If I said something wrong above, mercy me I don't know much of the meanings

Anyway, it's going too much offtopic I'll continue with the videos and will surely seek help from you all if stuck

Too much to cover, but I love All About Circuits : Free Electric Circuits Textbooks It's so simple and easy to understand. Even a guy from non technical background will understand it

 

[Mr.Kickass]

True, that. It wouldn't be long before someone goes

IMO if you liked All About Circuits then you can dig this site Kuphalt's Lessons in Electric Circuit written by the same guy who has prepared the tutorials

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

True, that. It wouldn't be long before someone goes

IMO if you liked All About Circuits then you can dig this site Kuphalt's Lessons in Electric Circuit written by the same guy who has prepared the tutorials

Thanks. But looks same tutorials.

 

[quagmire]

Anyone here into Texas Intruments MCUs - MSP430, Stellaris, Tiva C Series, C2000...?

---

OT : Anybody with info about importing stuff from US please help..
I need some advice about importing a BeagleBone Black from a relative who is returning from US. I read this article mentioned by Vyom in the other thread. It says circuit boards, populated boards are banned..
Since BBB is a populated board is that also banned from import?
If its marked as a 'Gift' is it exempt from duty?

 

[Shah]

Any good online store from where I can find servos for cheap price? I need 4 to 8 of them.

 

[d3p]

Any good online store from where I can find servos for cheap price? I need 4 to 8 of them.

Vegakits has some decent deals. The best will be checking out the local stores, where u can look for variety.

 

[Shah]

Vegakits has some decent deals. The best will be checking out the local stores, where u can look for variety.

URL of Vegakits??

 

[icebags]

some site lists are here, but donno how trustable they are.
Latest from around the Web: Electronics Hobbyist supply websites in India

 

[Mr.Kickass]

Once again I went digging the Beaglebone Black and here is what I gathered,

Their site lists only the authorized distributors so I checked with a few of them. There is hardly a price difference between the two of them but others are including the shipping charge so it costs a bomb

1. Sumeet Instruments sells at around 3,875
2. Element14 offers the same thing at a slightly higher price of 3,900
3. Mouser Electronics shocks everybody with a price tag of $130

Originally, the Beaglebone Black costs $45~INR 2769.39 but these guys charge you around 4k so an extra 1k~1.2k above the quoted price. Mouser, for example charges $90~INR 2462.60 as shipping charges which is nearly the price of the board itself and at a total of $130~INR 8003.45 it is a little under 3 times the original price

Verdict: Not worth the costs involved. Better stick to Arduino at the moment

EDIT: The link ico posted sometime back doesn't have the stock but it shows the price around INR 4000 thus confirming INR 3900 to be the average price

---

some site lists are here, but donno how trustable they are.
Latest from around the Web: Electronics Hobbyist supply websites in India

The legit ones are already there, can't say about others though. During my final year project some of my friends bought parts from Kits N Spares as we're from Delhi. They also ordered from SparkFun though(expensive IMO)

 

[quagmire]

Verdict: Not worth the costs involved. Better stick to Arduino at the moment

+1. Need it badly but too expensive everywhere

You can consider TI MCUs. They are becoming quite popular and are way cheaper and better than Arduino.

---

OT : Anybody with info about importing stuff from US please help..
I need some advice about importing a BeagleBone Black from a relative who is returning from US. I read this article mentioned by Vyom in the other thread. It says circuit boards, populated boards are banned..
Since BBB is a populated board is that also banned from import?
If its marked as a 'Gift' is it exempt from duty?

Anyone?

---

Anyways heres a kickstarter : HDMIPi Affordable 9" High-Def screen for the Raspberry Pi by Alex Eames - RasPi.TV — Kickstarter

£65 is still on the expensive side but if such a display is really necessary, IMO its worth it..

 

[icebags]

You can consider TI MCUs. They are becoming quite popular and are way cheaper and better than Arduino..

which model is it ? and how to program them ?

i was thinking about playing with some microchip chips, but apparently we will need a pickit tool for programming. and thats expensive.

 

[quagmire]

^Microcontroller | MCU - Overview - TI.com

The inexpensive ones are : MSP430 and Tiva C Series..

Pricing of MSP430 and Tiva C Series is under 12$. Both are much better than Arduino in all respects..

Take a look at introductory videos and the datasheet of both the MCUs..

Link for their official TI forum and community.

MSP430 has become so popular, its replacing 8051 Microcontroller in ECE course..

I have been using Tiva C Series for quite some time now and have totally fallen in love with it.

Highly recommended for all engineering students and OSH enthusiasts..

 

[icebags]

^studying on that.

anyways, i am having an weird problem here.

tried to run some atmega8s (bootloader ng + blink sketch) at breadboard with minimal setup (i.e. 1x xtal, 2x 22pf, 1x10k and power connection), and they refused to work. but the same is working on the freedruino board.

i tried using 328s (uno), they are working on both freedruino board and breadboard minimal setup.

how strange. atmega8s need some extra care or what ?

 

[icebags]

made a simple clock with 16x2 and arduino.

anyways, who has first hand experience with interfacing sd /mmc card with arduino ? i wanted to capture night time temperature log into an mmc card with an lm35 tempo sensor this winter. but i am kinda busy and getting mad with ork, amd may not be able to do it anytime soon.

anyone else wanna try ?

 

[Shah]

Just ordered an Induino board along with the Starters Kit from Simple Labs.co.in

 

[icebags]

congos ! now, make sure this doesn't be your last post here.

 

[Shah]

congos ! now, make sure this doesn't be your last post here.

Thanks! Still excited about it. It seems like I will receive it by next Tuesday/Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

 

[quagmire]

made a simple clock with 16x2 and arduino.

anyways, who has first hand experience with interfacing sd /mmc card with arduino ? i wanted to capture night time temperature log into an mmc card with an lm35 tempo sensor this winter. but i am kinda busy and getting mad with ork, amd may not be able to do it anytime soon.

anyone else wanna try ?

Check out Jeremy Blum's Tutorial on Data logging and SD cards..