Circuit Cellar Ink 276
July 2013

Table of Contents

2


Mary Wilson

HTML Editor's Letter

Not a Hockey Fan?

10


CJ Abate

HTML New Product News

15


David Tweed

HTML Test Your EQ

16


Jung Soo Kim
Nika Zolfaghari
James Andrew Smith

MCU-Based Prosthetic Arm with a Kinect

The technology behind Microsoft's Kinect for Xbox motion-sensing device can extend beyond gaming and into engineering applications. This project integrates a Kinect and a prototype prosthetic arm and demonstrates a platform to test control algorithms for prosthetics.

Download: 276-Kim.zip

30


Sharad Sinha

NBTI and FPGA Design

Negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) can affect the performance of FPGA-based designs. Changing a product's design or altering files containing circuit block information can reduce NBTI. This article provides an introduction to NBTI and describes its impact on FPGAs and digital clock managers.

34


Emily Marasco
Michael R. Smith
Maddie Lowe

Systematic Digital Processing

Part 1: Combining Embedded DSP with SQL

You can use a DSP-SQL interface to access large amounts of data on a server. This article describes a digital-signal processing design that combines MATLAB and a server query language into a database on a server, enabling easy access to externally collected data.

Download: 276-Smith.zip

44


Oscar Vermeulen
Andrew Lynch

DIY Single-Board Computers

Part 1: Design and Expansion Options

You can build your own computer on a small circuit board. This article describes a simple single-board CP/M design that uses just one high-capacity RAM chip and is compatible with a serial or PC terminal.

Questions & Answers

48


Nan Price

Engineer to the Core

An Interview with Joe Grand

From his grade-school Atari obsession and his teenage involvement in the L0pht Heavy Industries hacker group, to co-hosting Discovery Channel's Prototype This! and starting his own company, Grand Idea Studio, Joe Grand has always maintained his passion for engineering. Joe and I recently discussed his journey and his lifelong love of all things engineering.

The Consummate Engineer

52


George Novacek

Testing and Testability

Part 3: Testability Design Issues

An important aspect of product testing involves ensuring the product can be automatically tested easily, repeatedly, and often. The first two parts of this article series walked you through building a dedicated tester and discussed common testing techniques. Part 3 focuses on guaranteeing products can be efficiently tested.

Above the Ground Plane

56


Ed Nisley

LED Characterization

Arduino-Based Curve Tracer

Not content with using datasheet values, Ed built a specialized curve tracer to measure the actual characteristics of the LEDs in his collection.

Download: 276-Nisley.zip

From the Archives

62


Tom Struzik

Wireless Data Exchange

Build a 2,700-lb. Bluetooth Headset

Building a Bluetooth-enabled device can be difficult if you don't have any experience with the technology. Finding the right module can greatly simplify the process. The Bluegiga WT32 is a highly integrated Bluetooth module that fits the bill. Here you learn how to put Bluetooth to good use.

Download: Struzik-240.zip

From the Bench

70


Jeff Bachiochi

Serial Displays Save Resources

Part 1: Routines, Registers, and Commands

You can use a dedicated microcontroller to create a user-friendly graphic display. This microcontroller-based project utilizes a four-wire interface for its graphic-touch LCD.

Download: 276-Bachiochi.zip

76

Crossword Puzzle

79

Crossword Puzzle - Answers for Issue 275

80


David Feil-Seifer

Tech the Future

Using Socially Assistive Robots to Address the Caregiver Gap

FTP Directory for INK 276

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