User:DavidCary

Welcome to my little corner of Open Circuits.

I think I first stumbled across Open Circuits on 2006-03-01. I had been starting to set up a electronics-related wiki, but since this one was already here, why bother?

Feel free to leave a note on my talk page.

I created the WikiNode.

Electronic projects: (Should I move these to dedicated pages such as electronics workbench, etc.?)

wind turbine maximum power point tracker

moved to maximum power point tracker

anti-spam

see spam.

I prefer public communication so I avoid the problems associated with (the perception of) back room decisions.

--DavidCary 18:03, 4 February 2008 (PST)

electronics workbench

What exactly do I need for "normal" electronics development? I have a pile of stuff, and I have a wishlist of more stuff ... I hope to document which things are important to have, which things are useful but not immediately necessary, and which things ended up just gathering dust.

I wish there were a place like TechShop somewhere local.

• filing cabinet for all the miscellaneous bits of paper. If at all possible, I attach instruction manuals to the actual tool -- but if that is awkward, I stick the instruction manual in this filing cabinet.

data collection network

I'm building a "data collection network" that may end up with hundred of microcontroller sensor nodes, piping data into a PC. This may turn into a serious medical diagnosis tool.

POV display

(moved to POV display)

Full-color LED lighting

I'm planning to build a silly little toy with 3 LEDs -- one for red, green, and blue -- to show how "additive colors" work (a "color wheel"). (I might just extend it to have a whole spectrum of visible and infrared LEDs, and a prism to show the little spikes in the spectrum that LEDs generate).

"Red, Green, and Blue LED based white light generation" by Muthu, Schuurmans, and Pashley (2002) http://www.advancetransformer.com/uploads/resources/LED_White_Light_Issues&Control_-_White_paper.pdf

LED illumination applications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode#Illumination_applications

"How Many Red, Green, and Blue LEDs to make White" by Don Klipstein 2001 http://members.misty.com/don/ledrgb2w.html

LED Color Shifting http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/02/14/wireless-led-color-shifting/

"PC Card" PCMCIA

I maintain the unofficial PC Card FAQ.

I'd like to move it to a wiki. What would be the best wiki to put it on? Open Circuits?

-- DavidCary

Open Circuits Sysop

Whee! I'm a sysop at Open Circuits! The power -- it's rushing to my head! --DavidCary 15:20, 23 February 2007 (PST)

Me too ( thanks to you? ). How can I use my power, release the hounds. I am open to suggestions as to how I can help, right now I am just going to read up on what a sysop can do. russ_hensel Feb '08

Hi David, will be nice to have antispam measures :).

--RafaelOrtiz 18:00, 28 October 2007 (PDT)

Hi David can you give me some block IP rights ?

--RafaelOrtiz 13:17, 18 November 2007 (PST)

Hi David, I noticed that a bunch of open circuits is just a placeholder. I'm effectively retired so I can probably help contribute to this Wiki by expanding a bunch of the sections, but the spam here is really way out of control. I look at the revision history and I see a good 10+ spam edits per day. Don't you think it's time to try requiring a logon to make edits? I thank that would really reduce the spam. Asking people to use a human controlled e-mail address is not that much. It's not like people need to give their real name and address or anything. I think you will find that more people will be willing to contribute if the spam problem is handled. Eliminating the spam is more of a problem at this point then getting people to contribute. It would also free up your time to focus more on real editing. Mzoran 19:38, 12 December 2007 (PST)

strange and bizarre serial protocols

It seems like many people can't resist building yet another custom proprietary communication protocol. I'm polishing up a list of the 22 most common serial communication problems. I'm also making a collection of various communication protocols. I'm most interested in protocols that are (a) simpler to implement and simpler to understand than TCP/IP, (b) don't use "too many" pins on a microcontroller, and (c) avoid most of the above 22 most common problems.

I am beginning to suspect that it may not be possible to avoid all 22 problems unless the protocol is at least as complex as TCP/IP.

Also, I think that 4 pins on the microcontroller seems to make the hardware and software the simplest -- it's possible to squeeze communication to fewer pins, but either the hardware or the software (or both) will be more complicated.

Some "simple" protocols:

• SPI
• UNI/O single I/O serial bus -- seems to contradict my earlier suspicion -- the hardware is simple (connect a I/O pin on the MCU directly to the I/O pin on the EEPROM), and the software doesn't seem very complex.
• ... more to come ...