Here is another useful project based on the Atmel’s AVR butterfly kit. We should define “useful” though, this circuit was designed to trigger almost all Canon SLR cameras from a distance, so first of all you should own a Canon SLR camera and than carry on with the project. The circuit is controlled by an ATmega169 and powered by a 9V battery.
Canon SLR Camera IR Remote: [Download Project] - [View Project PDF] - [Via]
The BitESC is a small electronic speed controller for those little RC cars like the MicroSizer / BitChar-G. It can be used in a small RC plane to have some control over the speed of the motor. The speed of the motor ramps up or down, depending on which of the buttons on the transmitter you press. If no button is pressed, the ESC will ramp the throttle down to a stop after a few seconds. This safety net comes in handy when the plane flies out of transmitter reach.
BitES a very small speed controller: [Link]
This is versatile development board for AVR microcontrollers ATmega48/88/168. It is good for testing and debugging embedded programs. It has many built-in peripheries connected to microcontroller so you can use them without soldering. ATmega microcontrollers are produced by ATMEL and they include a lot of features: I/O, Timers, PWM generators, ADC, RS232, TWI, SPI, Analog Comparator, Oscillator, EEPROM These microcontrollers are very versatile, easy to program and easy to use. This is the reason why I like these microcontrollers and why I decided to make development board for them.
Jesper writes: This is another project which fullfills a need. I once built a frequency counter using plain TTL chips. That was long before the CMOS HC versions, even before LS was available. It could measure up to 50 MHz and worked quite okay, but the TTL chips was extremely power hungry. I think there was about 20-25 TTL chips on that monster. Well, but the old counter is now somewhere in the shed, and as I now again needed a counter, I did a bit more modern design.
It uses only 4 chips - 3 HC TTL’s and an Atmel At90S2313 microcontroller. It has a 5 digit LED display plus one used as a band indicator. Even with the LED display, the current consumption is less than 50 mA. It counts up to at least 52 MHz. I couldn’t find any signal source in the lab that could supply more than 52 MHz, so it may go a bit higher, but the fClock(typ) for the HC590 is about 35-40 MHz, so you shouldn’t really count (no pun intended) on more.
AT90S2313 Based Frequency Counter: [Link]
