Here is a handy collection of Op-Amp circuits from ti ranging from standard inverting to signal processing. While a lot of these are fairly straight forward it is still a handy reference for a quick look. These application notes can be very helpful, especially when a reference design is paired with proper PCB layout techniques as can be seen in this application note from microchip. In the coming days I will do a series of articles showing how we can improve our pH unit topology and layout a bit to take advantage of some of these tips. Keep an eye out, I think they will be quite helpful!

As many followers note I have been working on an OSHW garden controller for a while named GarData. having been through many iterations and tests I felt it was time to start reintroducing it back into the main projects. Many of our projects tie back into GarData as modules to the system. Making it a very flexible, cost effective and fun automation project to build. The idea behind this project started a few years back when I was asked to help automate a garden. The merging of 2 passions created a long running project that has been through many versions and styles while many close followers added input and suggestions. it will be a changing project over the next few months as I start releasing more modules and integrating them into the tutorial portion. As always you will find all schematics, source code and documents in the related sections so please check it out!

After reading the Atmel AVR121 application note that DP posted a while back, I thought about how our pH interface would make a very good candidate to illustrate how to perform oversampling on an AVR ADC. Buckle up and get ready to learn how to fake 12 or more bits of resolution out of a 10bit ADC!

Our popular pH interface is now back in stock!! We expected the older design to sell well but not as quickly as they did, as a result we pushed ahead a revision which includes USB native to the mix!

johngineer has built a really nice breadboard friendly breakout for ATtiny's. It is a really neat project and deserves the shoutout!

Video of Bret Victor's Keynote from CUSEC 2012 is up on vimeo now. For those that have followed him, he is a visionary software designer (that dabbles in hardware occasionally too!) and really does some great work. The keynote shows some stunning software demos, created using his ethos and guiding principle of allowing creators to immediate connect to their work. Check it out, it is well worth the time, with a surprise for us hardware types for the 3rd demo!!

Adafruit's Atmega32u4 board has been spotted being referenced in the serial apitest source code. As this is something we are actively pursuing it struck our eyes and though it was noteworthy. Chrome serial api test?, yes thats right we'll have serial access straight from our browser! I will have to play with this and try out some new ideas!

After going back and browsing through the 28c3's videos, I revisited a talk by Stefen Burschka about mining encrypted Skype traffic. The presentation isn't very technical and is a great example of creative problem solving. Their solution of "weighing" Skype packets combined with some back end technology produced a 66% hit rate on phrases and sentences( according to Stefen can be upwards of 80%) without ever decrypting a single packet. Thats quite an accomplishment, and while a bit out of scope is a great example of using creative problem solving to achieve the result. hats off to Stefen and his team, some very smart and creative people hard at work there!

Phillip Torrone of Adafruit and Make wrote a wonderful piece on culture of ethics in open source hardware. Its a thought provoking piece showing some of the darker aspects of working in and around the community, and got me thinking about some of our future projects and how we will approach them. There are several great points made, and its well worth the read!

We just added 3 new products to the store, and will add their corresponding project pages over the next few days as well! We hope everyone enjoys the new offerings!



First off, with the increasing popularity of Xbee and its form factor, we decided to create a pair of complimenting boards. The first is a USB to Serial/Xbee adapter board. It features the standard serial breakout header, as well as, an Xbee socket onboard and will fit on a breadboard! because of the increased power demands of some of the newer modules it features a 500mA 3.3v Vreg!



The second in the pair of new boards is an Xbee Adapter/Level Convertor. This very handy board includes an 8 port bi-directional auto-sensing level conversion IC. Since wiring Wifi/Xbee or other low voltage modules into the 5V Arduino can be a bit of a pain we created this board to take all the hassle away, plus giving a general purpose 8 port level shifter as well. So not only is it handy as an Xbee adapter but it is a general purpose level convertor as well!