Thursday 1 September 2016

Hello

Hi, I am not sure how to start a blog, but I will try. I have been an enthusiast of electronics, radio and rocketry since early age, yet recently I realized never shared any of this publicly. I intend to write here about my hobby projects and some commercial projects I do as a freelancer.

Of course, there are several active projects going on at once, as with many builders:

  1. High Altitude Balloon probes. This is a project involving several people. There are different versions built with different goals (e.g. cheap vs multifunctional), but usually they contain a GPS module and some means of transmitting data like 434 MHz RTTY transmitter. 
  2. Exploring the excellent Silabs Si4x6x transceiver IC series. Currently I have made a couple of small development boards based on Si4060 (TX) and Si4362 (RX). Many useful things can be done with these chips like telemetry transmission in ham-friendly modes such as RTTY or 1200 bps FSK (AX.25, for example, or APRS). The idea is to replace the previous radio module on our probes.
  3. Antennas for the transmitters in probes and receivers on ground. 
  4. Various power electronics modules, mostly low power DC/DC converters and battery chargers.
  5. SDRs. I have built one from scratch (more precisely it is a IQ downmixer with a filter/gain stage, and the processing is done by a PC). Since the cheap RTLSDR dongles have been available, I am mostly working with them. I am integrating them into a more usable receiver with a preamplifier, RF filters and possibly a small PC board or perhaps a powerful MCU.
  6. Lots of projects with AVRs way before Arduino even existed. Now I have started to work with ARM MCUs as well, moving to STM32 Cortex-M MCUs. 
  7. Geiger counter. Who doesn't want one!
  8. Variometer. The idea was born while searching for a good barometer sensor for rocketry/balloon projects, and it was found - Measurement Specialties MS5637. It's an excellent piece for an excellent price. 
  9. Automatic bicycle lights and alarm. The idea is super simple - just put a battery, accelerometer, MCU and LEDs together and you don't have to turn on/off your bicycle lights. Once you start moving, the lights go on, and go off shortly after you stop and leave your bike in rest. Light sensor can be used to determine how bright your lights should be. Also the accelerometer can be used as an audio/light alarm system when your bike is touched and messed around with. 
  10. Many more I can't remember at the moment...
Pictures and more details later.