A very interesting project showing you how to turn on and off the power from your mains outlet through computer network. It is very well documented and very useful. Basically you could turn on or off any device from any location as long as you can connect to your network.
The on/off switching will be done by an Olimex AVR/IO board. This board is equipped with an ATmega16 microcontroller (with no initial software loaded), four low-voltage inputs, a serial interface and four 5A/250V SPDT relays. These relays can be controlled by serial, by the four inputs or both depending on the code you will write for the microcontroller. So it is a very versatile board and only your imagination is the boundary of it’s utility.
The four low-voltage inputs are optocoupler isolated so this input can accept signals with different ground. Also these inputs are very helpful if you want to use a wireless module like the XBee. A PNP transistor is used to drive these inputs without any trouble.
Each relay provides connections for both normally open and normally closed positions. The relay will be placed between the hot wire that comes from wall and the hot wire that goes into the outlet. This way it will open or close the circuit on your command. Be careful however of the power consumption of the device you plug in the outlet. The relays are rated at 5A but they can be changed if your requirements ask for it.
The network controller is the Atmel NGW100 and will allow you to control the Olimex board through the network. It has two ethernet ports, lots of GPIO ports and Linux with TCP/IP installed. Control of the GPIO ports can be a little tricky with the NGW100 but you will find the scripts in the project.
The next thing is to connect the NGW100 to the network. Once that is done you can access the NGW100 through the network and execute the scripts according to your desired action.
Controlling Mains Power Through Network: [Link] – [Via]
Recently i received 2 computer motherboards and one broken laptop. So i started doing the best thing for them 
, taking them apart. First came the notebook, which was quite difficult to take apart, lots of screws in lots of small corners, pieces screwed together from both sides, etc.
But after a couple of hours i was left with a 15,4″ WXGA lcd panel, one 512 MB ram dimm(i used this to upgrade a friends laptop), a laptop keyboard, a laptop battery, a laptop cd-rom, a wifi lan board, and lots of different chips taken from the motherboard. In fact i will post a list with all the parts at the end of the article, because i have an idea
Next came the two computer motherboards, i took those apart too and saved allot of interesting chips.
And now the idea: since i now have a bunch of parts i want to give’em to someone so it can make something interesting out of it. I also want to give that person a PCB from BKRtech. So take a look at the list and if something looks interesting and you have an idea let me know, I’ll send you the parts and the PCB.
the list..
- LF-H80P – 1:1 ethernet transformer
- TEA5767 – single chip FM radio (1 x TEA5767 sent to Andreas Nilsson in Sweeden, there is 1 left)
- RTM660 – 109R Realtek soundcard
- ALC655 – six channel AC’97 audio codec
- CMI9738 – four channel AC’97 audio codec
- RTL8100CL – single-chip fast ethernet controller with power management
- W83627HF-AW – Winbond I/O familly chip
- W49V002FAP – Winbond 256k x 8 cmos flash memory with fwh interface
- Samsung 610 K9K8G08U0M – 1G x 8 Bit / 2G x 8 Bit NAND Flash Memory – Samsung semiconductor
- Samsung 616 K9WAG08U1A – 1G x 8 Bit / 2G x 8 Bit NAND Flash Memory – Samsung semiconductor
- SST39VF04 – 5124K x 8 CMOS Multi-Purpose Flash
- ATJ2085W – single-chip for flash-based digital music player
- ATJ2085H – single-chip for flash-based digital music player
- APL1087 – 800mA Low Dropout Fast Response Positive Adjustable Regulator and Fixed 1.8V, 2.5V and 3.3V
- GD75232 – multiple RS232 drivers and receivers – Texas Instruments
- TPS2210A – PC Card Power-Interface Switch w/ Reset For Serial PCMCIA Controller – Texas Instruments
- TPS5130 – triple synchronous buck controller with nmos ldo controller – Texas Instruments
- MAX1909E – Multichemistry Battery Charger with Automatic System Power Selector
- ISL6559CR – Multi-Phase PWM Controller
- 7407 – Hex Buffers/Drivers With Open-Collector High-Voltage Outputs – Texas Instruments
- IRF3704S – SMPS MOSFET – International Rectifier
- F3711S – HEXFET Power MOSFET – International Rectifier
- CEB6030L – N-Channel Logic Level Enhancement Mode Field Effect Transistor – Chino-Excel Technology
- FDD8896 – 30V N-Channel PowerTrench® MOSFET – Fairchild semiconductor
- FDD8880 – N-Channel PowerTrench® MOSFET 30V, 58A, 9mO – - Fairchild semiconductor
- 20N03L – Power MOSFET – ON Semiconductor
- PMBS3904 – equivalent 2N3904 NPN Epitaxial Silicon Transistor
- LM324M – Low Power Quad Operational Amplifiers – National Semiconductor
- ISL6227CA – Dual Mobile-Friendly PWM Controller with DDR Option – Intersil Corporation
- G1421 – 2W Stereo Audio Amplifier with No Headphone Coupling Capacitor Function – Global Mixed-mode Technology Inc
- G792 – probably fan controller – Global Mixed-mode Technology Inc
- 74LVC08A – quadruple 2-input positive-and gates
- 74AHCT125 – quadruple bus buffer gates with 3-state outputs
- 74AHCT08D – quadruple 2-input positive-and gates
- AO4407L – P-Channel Enhancement Mode Field Effect Transistor – Alpha & Omega Semiconductors
- AO4800BL – Dual N-Channel Enhancement Mode Field Effect Transistor – Alpha & Omega Semiconductors
- ISL6207CB – High Voltage Synchronous Rectified Buck MOSFET Driver – Intersil Corporation
- LVC14A – Hex inverting Schmitt-trigger with 5V tolerant input – NXP Semiconductors
- 74LCX00 – Low Voltage Quad 2-Input NAND Gate with 5V Tolerant Inputs
- APL5331 – 3A Bus Termination Regulator – Anpec Electronics Coropration
- 4431B – P-Channel 30-V (D-S) MOSFET – Vishay Siliconix
- 2951 – adjustable micropower voltage regulators – National Semiconductor
- RT9173 – 1.5A/3A Bus Termination Regulator – Richtek Technology Corporation
- AT93C46 – 3-Wire Serial EEPROMs – ATMEL Corporation
- 4422 – N-Channel Enhancement Mode Field Effect Transistor – Alpha & Omega Semiconductors
- 74HCT14 – hex schmitt-trigger inverters – Texas Instruments
- 74F32D – quadruple 2-input positive-or gates – Texas Instruments
- CV137PAG – Programmable FlexPC Clock for AMD K8 Processor ATI RS480 – Integrated Device Technology
- 10 KOhm thermistor
- SMD inductors – 15uH, 4,7uH, 6,8uH, 3,3uH
- SMD crystal oscillators and connectors
This project is an instance of the UsbProg project created by Benedikt Sauter. Bene released the schematics, board layout and firmware as an open-source project. Dean Hall took that project and made these modifications:
- Changed CONN1 to a type Mini-B receptacle (so it would be surface mount).
- Changed most parts to have surface mount packages (except jumpers and headers).
- Added capacitors C1 and C2 for decoupling.
- Added CONN3 2×5 pin header for Port A (the ADC inputs).
- Added JP3 jumper header to choose which pin controls LED1.
With a bit of work the board can be etched at home and you’ve got yourself a home made programmer. Or you could just pay $30 and get the original mkII from Atmel.( I chose the original one )
UsbProg-SHARP Clone Of AVRISP mkII: [Link]
ATMEGA8 DevBRD is an open source development board for the Atmel ATmega8 build especially for Linux users. The board is well suited for beginners who just want to start learning the avr programming but also for advanced users who want to use it as an MCU board.
ATMEGA8 DevBRD: [Link]
The author spend 4 months coding everything from scratch. The result was however worth the effort. This new programmer works flawless and it’s a diy project. The programmer firmware has no device dependent data. Therefore it works for almost any AVR microcontroller on the market and possible future microcontrollers.
This USB programmer can be build from scratch without the need of another programmer to load the initial firmware. The firmware is open source and programmed in C according to the AVR068 specification from Atmel.
AvrUsb500 – an open source Atmel AVR Programmer: [Link]
