Category: Electronics
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Generate PPM signal with Arduino
In the beginning of this year I’ve written a short tutorial how to read PWM signals from RC radio with Arduino. While it is can be useful when building own RC equipment, it does not help much when one has to deal with PPM (CPPM) signal. Let’s be honest, PPM is much more useful than…
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HC-12 433MHz RF serial module range test
As I mentioned in my first post about HC-12 433MHz radio modules, I’ve put my interest in them for telemetry purposes. While S.Port telemetry I’m using in FrSky Taranis radio might have higher range than HC-12, it is closed environment. Since $10 for a pair of HC-12 is not much, I’ve decided for more open…
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HC-12 433MHz wireless serial communication module configuration
Description HC-12 are cheap 433MHz wireless serial port communication modules with a range up to 1800m in open space. They are SI4463 based. Each costs about $5 when bought from China, and 2 of them can create wireless UART link that can be used, for example, to transfer telemetry data from UAV. Or drive IoT…
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How to flash firmware to ESP-01 ESP8266 WiFi module
One can think that internet know everything about everything. Yesterday I’ve learned the hard way that is does not. It took me better part of evening to find a working way to flash firmware, any firmware, to cheap ESP-01 ESP8266 WiFi modules. There are many tutorials, most of them were just wrong in my case.…
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How to measure battery capacity with Arduino
Battery capacity measurement can be useful in many situations. And it is not hard, only requires enough time to discharge battery completely with know resistance and a way to measure voltage in the circuit. Ohm’s law will to the rest: I = U / R Let’s say, we want to measure standard AA 1.5V alkaline…
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VirtualWire support for Raspberry Pi
FS1000A and XY-MK-5V 433MHz RF modules are very often first choice for cheap and dirty Do It Yourself wireless communication. Pair of those , allowing one way radio communication, const less than 3 dollars or euros. So they are really cheap. Limited range and transmission speed limits their real life usage, but simple assembly and…
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How to program ATtiny85 with Arduino IDE?
What is ATtiny ATtiny is a fimily of microcontrollers by Atmel, the same company that provides ATmega series used widely in “real” Arduino. Comparing to ATmega, ATtinys are much simpler, smaller (usually), with less features. But also cheaper, easier to connect, using less energy, and trust me, in many many cases you do not need…
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Read RC PWM signal with Arduino
Arduinos are cheap and simple development board. You can do a lot with even the simplest of them. For example build you own quadcopter and flight controller (after all MultiWii = Arduino + MPU6050). Of course, this is not as simple as one might imagine and there are few (actually a lot) obstacles that needs…
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Note on Arduino Uno servo jitter
Yesterday I discovered very nasty feature of Arduino Uno (and all other AVR ATMega328 boards) when using servos. Although official Servo library states that it can support up to 12 servos on Arduino Uno (more on advanced boards as Mega), it does not say much about quality of PWM signal. Since all connected servos (in…