Current Thoughts and Projects
Project Kickstarter
After busting my ass with ECE 599 Capstone Design this semester, I’ve gotten a lot better at organizing my thoughts and projects. To this effect, something might actually get accomplished. I’ve already ordered LEDs for my Undercabinet Lighting project, and have finalized the PCB for my project “KickStarter.” Updates soon on a Wireless Power Monitoring project, pending UofL letting us have the project to ourselves.
The kickstarter is something I look forward to making. Since I’ve started tooling around with electronics in the lab, I’ve been frustrated with all the mundane stuf that comes along with getting a project set up. Either buy a target board, or run messy wires to a programmer, wire up a reset switch, etc. etc.
I’m also tired of depending on Max 232’s for debug output. I’ve destroyed more of these things than I can count, and I’m tired of rigging up cheater cords for serial communications. My laptop doesn’t even have a serial port any more, and FTDI has a fantastic out of box solution for this stuff. The FT232 is the best Serial to USB bridge ever made.
Furthermore, although I certainly recognize the value of the Arduino platform, I don’t want to use it myself. These are training wheels that I neither need nor want for most of my projects. Thus, I unveil the project kickstarter.
This breakout board fits in a standard breadboard, taking up a minimum of space. All the pins on the ATMega xx8 series of microcontrollers are broken out, so if you want to disable any part of this board, all you have to do is cut the traces. The FTDI FT232RL provides USB UART functionality out of the box, making debugging a cinch. The board is currently set up to be externally powered. I’m working on a version that is USB powered, as well as a switchable version. A tactile switch provides a Reset, and the onboard 6-pin programming header makes it easy to get up and going.
I’ve got three of these guys on order from BatchPCB, so we’ll see how things go. I imagine this will help me get off my butt and actually take on projects more often.