#electronicsproject

[adafruit]

Solenoids go clicky-clacky 🔩🔊🤖

We're testing out an I2C-to-solenoid driver today. It uses an MCP23017 expander. We like this particular chip for this usage because it has push-pull outputs, making it ideal for driving our N-channel FETs and flyback diodes. The A port connects to the 8 drivers, while the B port remains available for other GPIO purposes. For this demo, whenever we 'touch' a pin on port B to ground, the corresponding solenoid triggers provide an easy way to check speed and power usage.

[codingheroesonline]

View this post on Instagram

Sometimes the simplest projects are the most fun! I think that’s definitely true for this project by @electronicsdiy - Share your ideas for a super simple DIY electronics Project in the comments! 😄😄😄 - - - #physicsfun #diyproject #electronicsengineering #electronicsproject #physicalexamination #physicsmemes #experiment #experiments #science #scienceexperiment #sciencetest #sciencethetics #diyelectronics (at Busan, South Korea) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8Yxqxinjt-/?igshid=10olu62z2xnn5

[adafruit]

Fruit Jam RP2350B credit-card mini computer with all the fixin's 🍓🍇💾

We were catching up on a recent Hackaday hackchat with Eben Upton (https://hackaday.io/event/202122-raspberry-pi-hack-chat-with-eben-upton) and learned some fun facts: such as the DVI hack for the RP2040 was inspired by a device called the IchigoJam (https://www.hackster.io/news/ichigojam-combines-strawberry-and-raspberry-to-deliver-a-raspberry-pi-pico-powered-educational-micro-66aa5d2f6eec). We remember reading about this back when it was an LPC1114, now it uses an RP2040. Well, we're wrapping up the Metro RP2350 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/6003), and lately, we've been joking around that with DVI output and USB Host support via bit-banged PIO, you could sorta build a little stand-alone computer. Well, one pear-green-tea-fueled-afternoon later we tried our hand at designing a 'credit card sized' computer - that's 3.375" x 2.125", about the same size as a business card (https://hackaday.com/2024/05/07/the-2024-business-card-challenge-starts-now/) and turns out there's even a standard named for it: ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1 (https://www.iso.org/standard/70483.html).

Anyhow, with the extra pins of the QFN-80 RP2350B, we're able to jam a ridonkulous amount of hardware into this shape: RP2350B dual 150MHz Cortex M33 w/ PicoProbe debug port, 16 MB Flash + 8 MB PSRAM, USB type C for bootloading/USB client, Micro SD card with SPI or SDIO, DVI output on the HSTX port, I2S stereo headphone + mono speaker via the TLV320DAC3100 (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/tlv320dac3100irhbt/2353656), 2-port USB type A hub for both keyboard and mouse or game controllers, chunky on-off switch, Stemma QT I2C + Stemma classic JST 3-pin, EYESPI for TFT displays, 5x NeoPixels, 3x tactile switches, and a 16-pin socket header with 10 A/D GPIO + 5V/3V/GND power pins. The PSRAM will help when we want to do things like run emulations that we need to store in fast RAM access, and it will also let us use the main SRAM as the DVI video buffer.

When we get the PCBs back and assembled, what should we try running on this hardware? We're pretty sure it can run DOOM. Should that be first? :) We also need a name. Right now, we're just calling it Fruit Jam since it's inspired by the IchigoJam project.

[adafruit]

Leftovers & layout - WLED board revision A completed!

Sunday night, Babyada went to bed early, so we finished the capture and layout of our WLED board. Thanks to all the suggestions, we were able to implement quite a few!

For power, use USB C PD with switch-select or DC up to 24V; they are diode-OR'd together with PMEG3050

https://www.digikey.com/short/zv22b0pq

into a massive 5A 24V fuse

https://www.digikey.com/short/43qwwtwm

For the 5V regulator, we picked NCP718ASN500T1G

https://www.digikey.com/short/bb9ncc0n

- it's linear, but we don't need a lot of current at 5V. For 3.3V, we went with our trusty TPS54202

https://www.digikey.com/short/c1wnnf94

Upon request, we kept the ICS-43434 I2S microphone

https://www.digikey.com/short/28zwrrhz

and added an IR 38KHz receiver. For external connectivity, there's an ADC/DAC/GPIO #27 breakout on a JST SH 3-pin and I2C on a StemmaQT/Qwiic 4-pin.

We also added a 2x3 breakout header with 3V, GND, and 3 more GPIO so you could connect an external microphone, IR receiver, buttons, or rotary encoder. The terminal blocks have three 5V level-shifted outputs with 100 ohm in-line resistors and power/ground pairs for each. If you need just one more LED strand, the fourth 5V signal is on the 2x3 block.

Rounding out the design are four mounting holes, a reset button, GPIO #0 user button, GPIO LED, and an individual NeoPixel, which could be useful for testing. It's still pretty small, 2" x 1.3". With an ESP32-Mini module, we can pick a PCB or wFL antenna port, and it's an easy swap to make it use an ESP32-Pico, which has 2MB PSRAM.

Whatcha think - anything else we should add or watch out for?

[adafruit]

bq25185 + TPS61023 = USB or Solar lipoly with 5V output 🔋☀️🔌

We spent the weekend tweaking our bq25185

https://www.digikey.com/short/8hd2778w

designs and made one basic breakout for this flexible battery charging chip. Then, we made a board with a 3.3V buck output to charge the battery with a USB or solar panel and got a clean and consistent 3.3V out. With both of those working, here's a design for a version that has a 5V booster with the TPS61023

Adafruit MiniBoost 5V @ 1A - TPS61023

This adorable little board will come in very handy whenever you need a good amount of 5V power. It's the size of a linear regulator, but

, which gives a nice clean 1A with a small bill of materials. Now you can use USB, DC, or solar to charge your favorite lipoly or liion chip and get 5V output. Maybe we'll make a version that can handle 3.6V LiFePO4 batteries, too? It's easy to set the bq to handle those by changing a single resistor.

[adafruit]

Metro RP2350 is wrappin' up testing ✨🐢

This week we got our Metro RP2350 boards

https://blog.adafruit.com/2024/11/11/metro-rp2350-now-with-bigger-better-rp2350b/

back and after fixing the pin direction and rerouting

adafruit on Instagram: "Metro RP2350 take 5 🔄🌟🤞 Sometimes mistakes are made in prototyping; that's why they're prototypes. The error in rev

241 likes, 0 comments - adafruit on November 26, 2024: "Metro RP2350 take 5 🔄🌟🤞 Sometimes mistakes are made in prototyping; that's why they

the whole thing, it came up and pretty much works perfectly! Just one component needed a swap - we were able to test all GPIO, analog inputs, MicroSD slot, PSRAM, LEDs & NeoPixel, user button, I2C/SPI/UART, aaand power supplies. The 5V supply is great, we got a nice clean 5V out at 2A+ from 12V DC in. The last thing to check is the HSTX port, which gives us DVI access, and it works, thanks to this festive turtle demo!

CircuitPython Turtle Graphics

This guide documents the new adafruit_turtle library to create awesome vector graphic designs on your PyPortal, PyBadge, PyGamer, and simila

We're aiming to get this into the shop before the end of the year, wouldn't that be smashing?

[adafruit]

Adafruit FruitJam is a Mac 384K 🍏💾

The FruitJam board has an RP2350, dual USB ports over PIO, DVI output from HSTX, and the ability to emulate some classic computers. In this demo, we're using it with the Mac 128K-But-With-384K-Instead

Macintosh 128K - Wikipedia

It's not quite a 512K or Mac Plus—which had 1 MB of RAM—but it does have the same 68000 core and is running a Mac Plus ROM, so once we get PSRAM going, we could easily expand to much more RAM. Right now, we can run Finder 5.1 and test out the mouse and keyboard, which both work flawlessly. This is super fun—we can't wait to get some of our favorite old games working! FruitJam is still a work in progress; we have to revise the PCB to fix some errors, but you can sign up here to be notified when we get them in stock

Adafruit Fruit Jam - Mini RP2350 Computer

Coming soon! Sign up to be notified when these are in stockWe were catching up on a recent hackaday hackchat with eben upton and learne

[adafruit]

TPS65131 split boost converter revision ✅🔧

We designed this split +12/-12 power supply board based on the TPS65131 (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/TPS65131RGER/1672464) a few months ago, but it languished while we worked on some other projects. We had an issue where the negative power rail was unstable. Thankfully, we found a thread that suggested slowing down the VNEG feedback loop (https://e2e.ti.com/support/power-management-group/power-management/f/power-management-forum/628380/tps65131-q1-abnormal-operation-of-tps65131-q1-s-vneg) with a 51k resistor. We hand-soldered that in, and it worked nicely. Then, the other fix was to flip around the trimmers so the turn direction matched the expected behavior. This should be good to book a second prototype, and then it can go into the shop.