Although sunshine is considered to be a relatively rare commodity in London, and is almost always welcomed, it has also been the source of a long-standing frustration. Being a light sleeper, I have often struggled with the amount of light… Continue
Having covered strain gauges and how they work (see Part 2), it is worth exploring how they are used and how we can get a useful signal from them to represent the strain that a member is undergoing. As discussed… Continue
Having briefly covered the general theory behind Analogue to Digital Conversion (see Signals, Sampling, Aliasing, Resolution, Accuracy), we will now look at an actual implementation. In this particular case we will be using an embedded Microprocessor Unit (MCU), specifically the… Continue
As an Analogue to Digital conversion isn’t exact, it is important to be aware of the types of errors that might occur, any inherent limitations, and see how this all affects the overall accuracy. In previous sections, aliasing was covered… Continue
The joule thief is a fascinating circuit with the ability to “steal” every little bit of charge left in a battery and power a device which would otherwise consider the battery to be dead. Many applications cut off when the… Continue
Having covered both analogue and digital signals in the previous section, the necessity of converting from one type to the other becomes evident. Digital signals are much easier to work with and process (especially from an electronic design standpoint) and… Continue
Another very important concept of Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC) is that of Resolution. In part 2, Sampling Frequency was discussed, and its effect on the accuracy of the conversion was covered. This was important as the resulting digital signal… Continue
At the heart of modern electronics lies what is known as Analogue to Digital Conversion (ADC). This blog post will cover the general concepts of analogue and digital signals, the fundamentals of ADC and move on to the technicalities of… Continue
Aliasing is a phenomenon that occurs when sampling analogue signals with high frequency components. When sampling at a frequency lower than the Nyquist frequency, signals may be incorrectly detected at a lower frequency, leading to inaccurate results. Careful design and… Continue