Circuit Cellar Ink 266
September 2012

Table of Contents

4 CJ Abate	HTML Task Manager The Ubiquitous Importance of Data
10 CJ Abate	HTML New Product News HRXL-MaxSonar-WR high-resolution, weather-resistant ultrasonic range sensor from MaxBotix, Inc. MESA 7I77 FPGA-based, six-axis analog control system for CNC from Mesa Electronics LTC6362 low-power, fully differential amplifier for driving high-precision ADCs from Linear Technology Corp. MRF-900-TCMP low-cost surface-mountable RF wireless module from Digital Six Laboratories, LLC SDS9302 low-cost, two-channel, 300-MHz oscilloscope from Saelig Co., Inc. 1685B, 1687B, and 1688B benchtop switching-mode DC power supplies from B&K Precision Corp. ezLCD-304 all-in-one modular LCD with graphical user interface (GUI) from Earth Computer Technologies, Inc. 80-Mbps serial nonvolatile SRAMs from Microchip Technology, Inc.
15 David Tweed	HTML Test Your EQ
11	Reader I/O Letters to the Editor
18 Brian Beard	MCU-Based Environmental Data Logger You can plan and construct a flexible environmental data logger. This article details a battery-powered data logger design featuring sensors for temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, light, and switches. The logger uses any terminal emulation program for control and data transfer. Download: Beard-code.zip
Questions & Answers 28 Nan Price	Embedded Systems Education An Interview with Miguel Sanchez Miguel Sanchez's fascination with electronics began at an early age. In July, Miguel and I discussed some of his early and current microcontroller-based designs, his 3-D printing projects, and how his career path -- which started at the School of Chemistry at the Universitat de Valencia -- led him to teach serial communications and networking technologies at the university level.
32	HTML DesignSpark chipKIT(TM) Challenge Winners Beginning in September 2011, design engineers from around the globe were challenged to turn their hot ideas into cool solutions using Microchip Technology's chipKIT Max32 development board. While these energy-conscience designers connected in the DesignSpark forums, their projects continued to evolve until the final innovative and eco-friendly project designs were ready for the judges. The judges reviewed all the entries and scored the projects based on technical merit, originality, design optimization, and quality of an extension card using DesignSpark's PCB tools. The judges' results are now final. Thanks to everyone who participated in this incredible competition and congratulations to all the winners! Enjoy your international recognition and prestige!
38 Mark Csele	Miniature Accelerometers DIY Acceleration Data Acquisition Miniature accelerometers are versatile, inexpensive devices that can be used for many motion-sensing applications. This article describes a self-contained recording accelerometer that features a graphical LCD and downloads data to a PC for later analysis. Download: Csele-code.zip
Embedded Security 48 Patrick Schaumont	Hardware-Accelerated Encryption Hardware acceleration can give slow embedded software a helping hand. Using modern field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), you will find the possibilities of integrating hardware with software are endless. This article describes how a hardware accelerator improves the performance of an encryption software routine by an order of magnitude. The technique with AES encryption on a low-cost DE0-nano FPGA kit will also be demonstrated. Download: Schaumont-code.zip
The Consummate Engineer 58 George Novacek	Project Configuration Control Family Tree Drawing & Document Archiving Family Tree drawing is an indispensable tool for maintaining project configuration control, document number assignment, project progress tracking, and document archiving. Documents and drawings are easily accessible, especially during design changes.
Lessons from the Trenches 62 George Martin	Software & Design File Organization A simple directory structure can track your project's correspondence, datasheets, specifications, hardware and software designs, and simulation results. This article describes one method of tracking information using a mechanical design project.
From the Bench 66 Jeff Bachiochi	Flowcharting Made Simple Use the Flowcode Flowcharting IDE to Write Code It is easier to code if you first create a flowchart, which is a diagram showing a step-by-step process. With a flowchart, you still have to write a machine-recognizable application. But what if your flowchart could create code? This article describes a flowcharting IDE that writes code for many types of microcontrollers.
74	Crossword Puzzle
79	Crossword Puzzle - Answers for Issue 265
80 Steve Ciarcia	HTML Priority Interrupt Managing Expectations

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