Tag Archives: mcu

External RAM and lost MCUCSR

Posted on 2015/06/18 by andy

Atmega’s MCUCSR status register gives info about restart reason like regular reset-pin shorted, watchdog initiated reset, or brown-out on low voltage from power supply. Pieces of valuable information for device defect tracking. Reading MCUCSR early in test program was fine, … Continue reading →

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Pimp my bus: from 8-bit AVR to 32-bit ARM

Posted on 2015/04/13 by andy

Going to newer architecture is unevitable evolution. ARM series is particularly good choice as knowledge of its core functionality is to large extent portable across manufacturers. While ARM Cortex-M chips are close to 8-bit AVRs in footprint size and price … Continue reading →

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Water Level Logger – insufficient RAM

Posted on 2014/05/24 by andy

For prototype I estimated that 128kB or flash would suffice and I was right; firmware took 75kB even though fatten up by embedded strings used across the code for tracing. On the other hand 4kB RAM of Atmega128 turned to … Continue reading →

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FreeRTOS tickless idle on Atmega128

Posted on 2014/01/23 by andy

Real-time operating system (RTOS) makes embedded coding more elegant and maintainable if MCU has to take care of many things at the same time. FreeRTOS also supports many platform including  8-bit AVRs. I am using it because of both reasons. … Continue reading →

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FreeRTOS on Atmega8?

Posted on 2013/07/22 by andy

How to compile FreeRTOS real-time operating system on 8-bit AVR microcontroller Atmega8? It is not supported out of the box as well as google hardly helps with that issue. I did some experiments and understood why people are not doing … Continue reading →

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Rainbow glowing ping-pong

Posted on 2012/04/10 by andy

While I was finalizing e-snowflake project, I imagined that single RGB 5050 LED would create nice rainbow effect if placed inside a ball like ping-pong. You can find plenty of such projects on the net, this one was heading to … Continue reading →

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e-snowflake

Posted on 2012/02/07 by andy

Late in December 2011 I almost bet that I am able to design & build myself a blinking serpent of rainbow lights for Christmas tree. I did not want to spend much time on creating cables and lights themselves but … Continue reading →

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The die has been cast

Posted on 2011/04/20 by andy

I remember my first digital circuit made up when I was teenager, an electronic dice, made of TTL logical gates, driving 7 LEDs formed to display any combination of dots of thrown dice. I realized it would be good microcontroller … Continue reading →

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