Circuit Cellar Ink 252
July 2011

Table of Contents

4 CJ Abate	HTML Task Manager Connection Achieved
8 Simon Ford	mbed Challenge Success! The mbed team set out to make rapid prototyping with microcontrollers a reality. Mission accomplished. Now it's up to the world's most innovative designers to take what they've learned and continue designing.
10 John Gorsky	HTML New Product News MicroBench MB-500 PC-based protocol analyzer/simulator from Anewin Power-Line Modem (PLM) PICtail Plus Daughter Board Development Kit from Microchip Technology, Inc. S7 Series 2.5" SATA SSD for extreme-environments from Emphase Epsilon PC/104 managed Layer 2 Ethernet switch module with eight 10/100/1,000-Mbps ports from Diamond Systems Corp. EK-P3 evaluation kit for SDP600 series differential pressure sensors from Sensirion AG FlashFly remote programmer for Parallax modules and chips from Blue Wolf, Inc. iW1700 AC/DC digital PWM controller for low-cost, energy-efficient, 120/230-VAC power adapters from iWatt, Inc. RE2 low-power ARM Cortex A8 embedded computer module from Blue Chip Technology Ltd. "Complete A to Z Guide to Performing a Patent Search" DVD from Midwest Patent Services, LLC DS3660 security manager chip with 1,024 bytes of nonimprinting memory from Maxim Integrated Products USBee RX Test Pod PC-based programmable multifunction mixed-signal oscilloscope from CWAV, Inc.
17 David Tweed	HTML Test Your EQ
Questions & Answers 18 Nan Price	Exploratory Design & Programming An Interview with Chris Cantrell Chris Cantrell (MSEE) is a Senior Software Engineer at Avocent in Huntsville, Alabama, who has been reading Circuit Cellar since the late 1990s. Nine of his articles have appeared in Circuit Cellar. Chris's next article -- about a Parallax Propeller-based gaming platform -- is scheduled to appear in autumn 2011. In May 2011, I interviewed Chris about his engineering background, projects, and years of developing electronic systems and exploring the field of embedded programming.
22 CJ Abate	HTML NXP mbed Design Challenge Winners Many design challenges ask participants to toss together some parts, blink a few LEDs, and write a bit of code for a shot at a prize. The NXP mbed Design Challenge 2010 was different. It was administered for the higher purpose of encouraging designers around the world to help make embedded design a more accessible, productive, and community-oriented endeavor. The rapid prototyping revolution began back in September 2010 when designers from such diverse locations as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, India, and Taiwan started working with their mbed NXP LPC1768 prototyping boards. The challenge was to use the board, the mbed online "Cloud" compiler, and the mbed community resources to develop an innovative hardware- or software-based application. The project submission period ended February 28, 2011. Soon thereafter, the judges began scoring the projects on their technical merit, originality, usefulness, cost-effectiveness, and design optimization. And now the judges' results are final. Congratulations to all of the winners!
The Consummate Engineer 26 George Novacek	Sine Wave Synthesizer If seasonal time changes cause your WWVB radio-controlled clocks to lose synchronization, building your own WWVB simulator is the first and necessary step for devising a remedy. With a few inexpensive parts, you can build a robust sine wave synthesizer as the heart of a WWVB simulator.
30 Toby Baumgartner	The TROBOT A Miniature Articulated Robot The TROBOT is a compact six-axis robot powered by RC-style servo motors. An MCU acts as a servo controller interface between the robot and a PC running robot programming software. Download: Baumgartner-252.zip
38 Indranil Majumdar	MCU-Based GSM Connection A Fixed Cell Phone with Emergency Auto-Dial A little embedded intelligence (EI) goes a long way. This microcontroller-based design features a GSM platform, a controller, a keyboard, and a handset for easy dialing and wireless calling. Download: Majumdar-252.zip
44 Marty McLeod	Li-ion Battery System Solution Implement a BCU and Safety-Certified RTOS Current lithium-ion (li-ion) systems can be problematic. Here you learn how to implement a battery control unit (BCU) with a safety-certified RTOS. The design enables battery monitoring, data reporting, and circuit protection. Download: McLeod-252.zip
54 Daniel Mejia Jayce Doose	Passwords Through a Touchpad A Gesture-Based Security System Password usage is ubiquitous, which makes password theft and reproduction a big concern. While many password-entry techniques have been created to increase security, there are disadvantages associated with most of them. Using a gesture-based password security system helps to successfully create, store, and match passwords, making them safer and more difficult to reproduce. Download: Mejia_Doose-252.zip
Lessons from the Trenches 64 George Martin	Design Development Part 2: Product Implementation It's time to dig deeper into the design process. This month schematic capture software is used to define the hardware portion of a design. Download: Martin-252.zip
From the Bench 68 Jeff Bachiochi	Vehicle Diagnostics Part 2: Pre-CAN Protocol Standards The first part of this series was a primer on automotive control systems and OBD-II data. This article explores the pre-CAN protocol standards still in use. You can use this information to diagnose trouble codes and more.
74	Crossword Puzzle
77	Crossword Puzzle - Answers for Issue 251
79	Advertiser's Index / August Preview
80 Steve Ciarcia	HTML Priority Interrupt Reality, Maybe

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