Archive – Arduino Craft Corner

Drifting in the Flow of Time (4/17/2023) - This post describes how a long-term experiment on comparing different RTCs is set up, and it discusses what is necessary to carry it out. In particular, it introduces a new universal RTC library.
ATmega328P: Fake or Real? (3/7/2023) - Did I buy fake ATmega328P chips, or are they the real thing?
The Return of the Y2K Bug (3/1/2023) - If you are old enough, you probably remember the Y2k bug. Now, mankind should have learned from it, right? Wrong!
Everything You Wanted to Know About Real-Time Clocks but Were Afraid to Ask (2/24/2023) - What is a real-time clock? Why do you need one? What are the use cases? How accurate can a real-time clock be? Which features can a real-time clock have? Which models are around? And which one should you buy?
A Sunset Cache Box (2/18/2023) - What does it take to build a geocaching box that can only be opened at sunset?
SD-WIFI by FYSETC: Wireless 3D printing (2/14/2023) - Are you tired of carrying the 3D data from your computer to the printer using an SD card? SD-WIFI could be the solution!
Synchronism (1/22/2023) - For a long time, I wanted to create a geocache where two people at different locations had to press a button at exactly the same time in order to be able to open their respective cache boxes. Now the job is done!
Create Your Own World: Print it! (1/3/2023) - Now it has happened. I finally assembled the 3D printer kit I bought in 2018.
Winter is coming … (12/1/2022) - Winter is coming ... and there are a lot of projects on the desk.
Parasitic Power Supply (3/15/2022) - In parasitic power supply mode, a device sucks its juice from a data line instead of from the power rail. This can be intended or unintended. In the latter case, all sorts of funny things can happen.
Quote (2/25/2022) - "Make it Fail!" (David J. Agans)
Fixing Problems … Using Super-Global Variables (2/3/2022) - Fixing problems is much easier with dw-link. And the debugger even covers more ground than expected.
A debugWIRE Hardware Debugger for Less Than €10 (1/13/2022) - How to build a really cheap debugWIRE hardware debugger
dw-probe: The Hardware for the Hardware Debugger (1/4/2022) - dw-probe connects an Arduino Nano or Pro Mini that runs dw-link to any target.
That’s One Small Step for a Man, One Giant Leap for a Debugger: On Single-Stepping and Interrupts (1/2/2022) - Interrupts can confuse one when single-stepping through a program; dw-link mitigates this problem.
Quote (12/31/2021) - "There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers" (Steven Levy)
dw-link: A New Hardware Debugger for ATtinys and Small ATmegas (12/31/2021) - Here comes a new, cheap hardware debugger for debugWIRE.
Surprise, Surprise! (12/29/2021) - What discoveries can you make when you sail into the sea of undocumented AVR MCU features?
Debugging a Debugger With Itself (12/27/2021) - Can we debug a debugger with itself? Yes, if we understand the limitations!
Link-Time Optimization and Debugging of Object-Oriented Programs on AVR MCUs (12/15/2021) - Link-time optimization and debugging OO programs do not work very well together, at least on AVR MCUs.
Quote (11/18/2021) - "Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug"
One Line Only (10/30/2021) - A new Arduino library has seen the light of day: SingleWireSerial. It supports single-wire, asynchronous serial, half-duplex communication.
Communicating Asynchronously (10/26/2021) - How does asynchronous serial communication work, what Arduino libraries are there to support it, and what can go wrong?
Is any Input Available? (10/21/2021) - Why is SoftwareSerial.available() so slow? And how can we fix that?
Timing the Timekeeper (10/20/2021) - How much overhead is associated with the millis interrupt? And can we get rid of it?
Real Programmers Write Assembly Code (10/11/2021) - How to write inline assembly code
Doing it the Logical Way (10/7/2021) - Why you should buy and use a logic analyzer!
Connecting the Dots (9/28/2021) - How to drive a 5x7 matrix display directly by an AVR MCU.
Saving Energy by Choosing the Right MCU (9/24/2021) - Are there significant differences of power consumption between different types of AVR MCUs?
Running on Batteries (9/21/2021) - How to minimize energy consumption of an Arduino project
Pimp Your Pro Mini (8/9/2021) - How to minimize power consumption of a Pro Mini and to burn a new bootloader that saves flash memory, allows debugging, and fixes an annoying WDT bug.
Quote (8/4/2021) - "Testing is not responsible for the bugs inserted into software any more than the sun is responsible for creating dust in the air." (Dorothy Graham)
How Many Programmers Do You Need …? (8/2/2021) - A stroll through the gallery of the ISP programmers that I acquired over the years.
Quote (7/30/2021) - "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." (Brian W. Kernighan)
Another Piece of the Puzzle (7/28/2021) - How to build a small electronic puzzle box that will work for 20 years with one battery.
Quote (7/24/2021) - "Premature optimization is the root of all evil"
Debugging(4): Stub it out! (7/22/2021) - Recipe for setting up a debug environment with a gdb-stub.
Burnt Fuses and Bricked MCUs (7/21/2021) - Recipes for fuse burning and high-voltage programming on AVR chips.
Debugging(3): Debugging is Like Being the Detective in a Crime Movie Where You are Also the Murderer (7/19/2021) - Introduction to embedded debugging: What kind of debbuging tools are there for embedded systems and how to use them.
Debugging(2): It’s the Hardware, Stupid! (7/17/2021) - Introduction to debugging: What kind of hardware bugs do exist?
Debugging(1): What Kind of Bug is This? (7/15/2021) - Introduction to debugging: Classification of possible errors.
I’m Sorry, Dave, I Can’t do That (7/13/2021) - Fix macOS version of avr-gdb so that it can read elf files again.
Unfreeze Your Atmel-ICE (7/13/2021) - Make avrdude work again with Atmel-ICE under macOS.