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

I'm thinking about designing a maximum power point tracker (MPPT) specifically optimized for wind turbines. (See wikipedia: maximum power point tracker for details).

Currently available off-the-shelf MPPTs work fine in the application they were designed for, but apparently they won't work with wind turbines. When they pull the maximum instantaneous power from a spinning turbine, the turbine blades go slower and slower until it stops, at which point you're getting zero power out.

The wind turbine maximum power point tracker I'm designing will extract more energy over the course of a day than those MPPTs. Instead of pulling the current that maximizes instantaneous power out, it will pull somewhat less current in order to keep the blades spinning at the optimum speed. That speed will change over the course of the day as the wind speed changes.

--DavidCary 08:14, 26 September 2008 (PDT)

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 ...