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Can AI create a rap music video?

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time6 min
Views1.8K

Hello everyone, this is Denis Weber.

One day, I was once again looking for a 3d model on stock for my project and came across a neural network that can create high-quality 3d models in just a couple of clicks. And I wondered if it would be possible to create something like a music video using only the capabilities of existing neural networks?

If you prefer the video format, I will leave a link to the video at the end of the post.

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Making of Heroes of Might and Magic III — Factory Town in 3D

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time7 min
Views1.9K

Hello everyone, this is Denis Weber.

Heroes 3 is one of my favorite games from my childhood. I can call it the king of turn-based strategy games. Once again, while playing Heroes, I thought about what a castle from a game could look like in 3D, but all I had was a low quality screenshot.

If you prefer the video format, I will leave a link to the video at the end of the post.

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How to create a LEGO animation without getting burned out?

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time4 min
Views711

Hello everyone, this is Denis Weber.

Today I’m going to talk about what happens if you combine LEGO and the iconic movie Terminator 2. I’ll show you how I created a real LEGO trailer and what came out of it. I like doing such large-scale projects and if you have any cool ideas, let me know in the comments.

If you prefer the video format, you can watch it here.

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How to increase capacity of drive from 32 to 256 GB for Asus E200H laptop

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time5 min
Views1.3K

Hi Everyone.

Recently I got Asus E200H laptop, which I would like to use as a portable computer to work with a high-precision equipment.

Within the scope of the article we will perform the experiment about the upgrade of the default 32 GB eMMC capacitor to 256 GB and will test it.

Have a nice reading!

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Exploring Oslo A Fusion of Culture, Innovation, Nature, and Weather

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time3 min
Views395

Nestled amongst the serene fjords and picturesque landscapes of Norway, Oslo stands as a testament to the harmonious blend of modernity and tradition. This vibrant capital city, with its rich history dating back over a thousand years, offers visitors an unparalleled experience that seamlessly integrates culture, innovation, and the breathtaking beauty of nature, all under the ever-changing skies of its varied weather.

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Building firmware for Orange PI i96 (Orange PI 2g-iot) from scratch

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time14 min
Views1.2K

Hellow my name is Dmitry. Once I bought "Orange PI i96", but unfortunately producer not update it firmvere very long. Last firmwere kernel version is 3.10.62 but kernel current at time this article writing (russian version) is 6.5.1. And so I decide build my own firmware from scratch, and do it from sourse completely.

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Unveiling Switzerland: A Must-Visit Travel List

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time4 min
Views435

Switzerland: the very name conjures up images of pristine alpine landscapes, picturesque villages, and a sense of tranquility that seems to permeate the very air you breathe. It's a country that's often synonymous with beauty, precision, and adventure. Whether you're a nature enthusiast, a history buff, or simply seeking to indulge in some of the finest chocolates and cheeses the world has to offer, Switzerland has something for everyone. So, if you're planning a trip to this enchanting land, here's a curated list of must-visit destinations and experiences that will make your journey truly unforgettable. 

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Chasing a dream: How to become Adventure Builder and make giant spider robot with your own hands

Level of difficultyEasy
Reading time12 min
Views493

Have you ever wondered how difficult it is to turn something you have in mind into a real product? For example, would you be surprised to see someone controlling a huge iron robot spider that can turn on the spot and walk obediently to his pilot's directions?

To realize his idea, this persistent designer overcame many obstacles: he invented the mechanism himself, mastered the skills of aluminum welding, laser cutting, 3D printing, created a reduced prototype and built one. His project stands out even among the most interesting self-made devices you've read about.

Please sit back and relax while reading this rather lengthy article. During the scrolling through, you will learn about some remarkable inventor and his resourcefulness, irrepressible life energy and practical advice to help you realize your dreams, and someone, perhaps, will be pushed to tell about his own project.

Become the adventure builder

Setup of Qt Creator for programming and debugging of STM32 microcontrollers

Level of difficultyMedium
Reading time9 min
Views2.6K

Currently I am investigating firmware development for STM32 microcontrollers and I would like to share with you my experience for doing it in Qt Creator IDE.

There are a lot of IDEs, which are used for firmware development of STM32. Some of them, being quite comfortable, have restrictions for trial license. For example, the one of the most known IDE, IAR Embedded, suggests either a limited amount of product usage time (30 days) or the limited firmware size of 32 MB, which is not too much.

Within this scope of the publication, we investigate the method of setting up an environment that allows one to develop the full value of the STM32 firmware in Qt Creator.

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Wi-Fi internet radio from a router with station switching capability

Level of difficultyMedium
Reading time8 min
Views1.9K
Wi-Fi интернет-радиоприёмник.
ChatGPT was not used in writing this article.
The animated image uses the webp file format instead of gif.
In this article, you will find a complete description of how to make a Wi-Fi internet radio receiver from a router that can play mp3 streams from internet radio stations.
It is also possible to switch between two internet radio stations. We will use OpenWRT firmware installed on the router to create a Wi-Fi internet radio. It is possible to complete this project without using a soldering iron. All the components can be placed inside the router to create a finished device — a Wi-Fi internet radio.
To make this, you will need:
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http://GuitarFX.Net Digital (SOFTWARE) modeling of analog guitar distortion, reverb, noise gate etc. effects

Reading time5 min
Views1.4K

The sound of rock music, in particular of hard rock and heavy metal, is largely based on a specially distorted guitar sound, for which electronic “distortion” devices, tube amplifiers in “overloaded” mode, computers with appropriate software and digital processors are used. increasingly using neural network algorithms.

The distorted sound of electric guitars began to gain popularity around the 1960s. Since that time, the sound of overloaded tube amplifiers, connected to powerful dedicated guitar speakers with large dedicated speakers, has been considered the benchmark in rock music. But tube amplifiers were relatively expensive and inconvenient to operate. Therefore, semiconductor distortion devices were developed.

At that time, the electrical circuitry of distortion devices was relatively simple and the signal output from their output only vaguely resembled the sound of an overloaded tube amplifier. Nevertheless, it was still somewhat similar to the “sound of a lamp” and this provided a powerful incentive for designers of analog semiconductor distortion circuits to continue their research, complicate circuits and propose new circuit solutions. The heyday of analog solid-state distortion was around 1995-2010. The most popular were electrical circuit diagrams like those shown in the figure below.

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Android for electronics design engineers

Reading time5 min
Views2.1K

There is a list of well-known electronics design tools for Android which can be found in every review for the last 10 years: “Electrodoc”, “Every Circuit”, “Droid Tesla”, “Electronics Toolbox”, “RF & Microwave Toolbox” and so on. Also, there is a lot of trash on the market that turns finding a good tool into a quest.

This short review is about an unknown but cool tool “Circuit Calculator” working on Android devices and intended for professional electronics designers.

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Making an Encoder Cable for Servosila Brushless Motor Controller. Testing in Direct Drive mode

Reading time2 min
Views949

In this video, we are making a cable for connecting a quadrature encoder to a Servosila brushless motor controller, and and then running a servo motor in Direct Drive mode. To make the cable we are using a cable assembly kit that can be purchased from the internet store. Alternatively, the components for the cable can be bought in other places. The part numbers are given in the controller's datasheet.

The cable assembly kit consists of a connector and a set of wires with pre-crimped socket blades. If you have a crimper tool, you can also attach the socket blades to wires by yourself.

Lets open a datasheet document that comes with the brushless motor controller. Note that each connector has its first pin clearly marked with a "1" sign. Conventionally, the numbering of pins is done in such a way that there are rows of odd-numbered and even-numbered pins.

The quadrature encoder's electrical interface has 5 wires in total. Positions of the pins of each of the wires are given in the table. The socket blades need to be pushed into the connector until you feel a "click". The blades lock into the connector's sockets. Optionally, primarily for cosmetic reasons, you may want to add a heat-shrink tubing to your cable.

The brushless motor controllers come in two distinct forms, a circular and a rectangular one. Both models are identical in terms of capabilities, features, firmware, and external electrical connectors.

The connector has a locking mechanism that keeps it in place. I soldered a mating connector to the other side of the cable - a connector that my brushless motor needs. Note that your motor will likely require a different connector, or no connector at all. It is always a good idea to test an end-to-end integrity of the cable and its connectors. Lets buzz the wires using a multimeter. The cable is ready.

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SEPIC-Ćuk split-rail converter average model

Reading time4 min
Views1.6K

SEPIC-Ćuk split-rail converter can be used to make positive and negative supplies from a single input voltage for relatively well-matched loads like operational amplifiers.

Transient models are time consuming. Average models reduce modeling time drastically.

The PWM switch average models for current- and voltage-mode are described in details in Christophe Basso’s book “Switch-Mode Power Supplies, Second Edition: SPICE Simulations and Practical Designs”. Using of these models for SEPIC and Ćuk converters is also shown.

This text shows how to use the PWM switch average model to design a split-rail SEPIC-Ćuk converter.

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A note on small-signal modeling of SEPIC CM CCM

Reading time6 min
Views3.5K

Knowing parameters of small-signal control-to-output transfer functions makes it easier for engineers to design compensation networks of DC/DC converters. The equations for SEPIC can be found in different works and Application Notes, but there are differences. A work has been done to solve this problem.

Simplified design equations for SEPIC with Current Mode control (CM) in Continuous Conduction Mode (CCM) suitable for practical design of compensation networks are shown.

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Controlling Brushless Motors using a Linux computer or a PLC

Reading time5 min
Views2.9K

In this video, we will look at how to connect brushless motor controllers to a Linux computer. Specifically, we will use a computer running Debian. The same steps would work for Ubuntu Linux and other Linux distributions derived from Debian.

I've got a small sensorless brushless motor, and a bigger brushless motor with a built-in absolute encoder. Lets look at how to control those from my Debian Linux computer. Servosila brushless motor controllers come in several form factors with either a circular or a rectangular shape. The controllers come with a set of connectors for motors and encoders as well as for USB or CANbus networks.

The controllers can be powered by a power supply unit or by a battery. To spice up my setup, I am going to use a battery to power the controllers and thus their motors. The controllers need 7 to 60 volts DC of voltage input. If I connect the battery, the controllers get powered up. The small LED lights tells us that the controllers are happy with the power supply.

We need to connect the brushless motor controllers to the Linux computer. There are two ways to do that - via CANbus or via USB. Lets look at the USB option first. A regular USB cable is used. Only one of the controllers needs to be connected to a computer or a PLC.

Next, we need to build an internal CANbus network between the controllers. We are going to use a CANbus cross-cable to interconnect the controllers. Each controller comes with two identical CANbus ports that help chain multiple controllers together in a network. If one of the interconnected brushless motor controllers is connected to a computer via USB, then that particular controller becomes a USB-to-CANbus gateway for the rest of the network. Up to 16 controllers can be connected this way via a single USB cable to the same control computer or a PLC. The limit is due to finite throughput of the USB interface.

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Doubling effective digitization frequency by multiple pass approach, is it possible?

Reading time4 min
Views1K

As already described in the previous article, in the process of reworking the DSO138 oscilloscope toy, the idea arose in the DSO303 firmware at some point to try to double the maximum sampling frequency to achieve scanning times of 500 and 200 nanoseconds per cell. In fact, for the STM32F303, the theoretically maximum achievable sampling rate from the point of view of the ADC input, and this is determined by the minimum opening time of the ADC sampling unit, which in our case is 1.5 clock cycles x (1/72 MHz) = 20.8 nanoseconds, is 48 MSPS (millions of counts per second). However, with the parallel operation of 4 ADCs at 6 MHz, it is possible to achieve only 24 MSPS due to the limited speed of the ADC.

Let's imagine that we are considering correctly-periodic signal, which is also constant, i.e. it does not experience fluctuations in frequency and amplitude over time. Is it possible to somehow digitize it not in one, but in several passes, thereby increasing the effective sampling frequency? 

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DSO138 upgrade

Reading time11 min
Views4.8K

On Ali, an interesting toy – an oscilloscope called DSO138 is sold for a very inexpensive price. It has already gained quite a lot of popularity among electronics lovers, but the parameters of this device, alas, allow it to be more or less fully used only for debugging very low-frequency circuits. Actually, it is not positioned as a tool, but rather as a DIY-kit for novice electronics engineers.

This "toy" oscilloscope is assembled on the STM32F103 microcontroller, and with a fairly competent circuit design of the digital part, the presence of a fairly decent 320X240-dot color display, and not the most rotten analog path, everything, alas, is ruined by very weak ADCs on board the 32F103. The claimed band of 200 kHz can be recognized as such only with a very large stretch. Yes, it will show the presence or absence of a signal with such a frequency, but it will not be possible to really look at something beyond this.

At the same time, the 103-series has a slightly more powerful brother - the STM32F303, it is almost completely compatible with the legs, but it is significantly better in terms of the parameters we are interested in, there are 4 ADCs on board with a conversion frequency of 5 MHz (6 MHz with a 10-bit resolution). In this scenario, if you use all 4 ADCs in parallel with a 10-bit resolution, you can get a effective resolution of up to an honest 24 MSPS (millions of samples per second). The microcontroller is also inexpensive; you can easily find it on the same Ali for very reasonable money again. It is clear that the idea to change the microcontroller arose almost immediately after I tried this DSO138.

At the same time, if upgraded the toy can turn out to be a completely full-fledged tool that even professionals, not just novice amateurs, could already use. With these thoughts in mind, I decided to try to do something with a Chinese toy in my free time.

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