Users - Snibble - SparkFun Electronics

News - The Science of Licking a … | about 3 weeks ago

One evening in college, I learned a lot about the way telephones work after some excitement…

I was relocating a telephone line in a room we were remodeling. I had a habit of stripping small wires with my front teeth. I had stripped one wire of the pair, and I stuck the second wire in my mouth to complete the pair. Apparently, the first wire I had stripped was laying against my nose when the phone rang…

I saw stars…and colors…and I bit my tongue…and I had a burn on the side of my nose for several days.

…and I went out and bought some decent wire strippers.

News - Your March Caption Contes… | last year

“Dear Sir, please find enclosed a photo of the water-damaged ceiling tile that we discussed on the phone this morning. As you can see, it detracts from the appearance of our office, and we would like to have it replaced soon.”

News - New Product Friday: The H… | about 2 years ago

How about a pile of stuff from Ding&Dent for the showcase? Seems like there’s fun to be had there.

News - Calling All Bean Counters | about 4 years ago

Wait…would that invalidate the “We are not a start-up” statement in the posting?

News - Ski Season Is Over But Th… | about 4 years ago

Sorry to hear about your son’s loss. But it seems there’s a lot of that kind of thing going ‘round:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorial_info.php?tutorials_id=180

Tutorial - Snake Stomp Pads Design and Assembly Tutorial | about 4 years ago

Note that near the top center of the schematic, there’s a connector for “TRIAX_ACCEL_BREAKOUT_MMA7361”.
That’s this:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9652
It’s an accelerometer that can detect things like being stomped on.
I haven’t dug through the code to see exactly how the accelerometers are read, but I’d guess that they’re used in a “click detect” kind of fashion where any sharp pulse (maybe only along the Z axis?) is detected and triggers what amounts to a keypress handler to control the snake movement.

Tutorial - Snake Stomp Pads Design and Assembly Tutorial | about 4 years ago

Wow…there’s plenty to digest here. Thanks!
ObNitPick: Minor typo? In “What do I need?” section, should first bullet be “inkspace” or “inkscape”?

Tutorial - Beginning Embedded Electronics - 1 | about 4 years ago

See Nate’s comment in the section below the first photo of the breadboard:
“I did not install a reverse protection diode. I only use center positive power supplies so I know I’m safe."
(…sounds like famous last words to me…)

Tutorial - Beginning Embedded Electronics - 1 | about 4 years ago

Agree that the AVR stuff is fun to play with at the price point, but have recently been doing MSP430 stuff at work and ran across a deal that might be interesting for some readers. $4.30 for a couple of “value line” MSP chips and supporting board for experimenting.
http://www.ti-estore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MSP-EXP430G2

Product COM-09482 | about 4 years ago

Yes, you’ll need to do some multiplexing. You want to rapidly sequence through each digit, not turn them all on simultaneously.
See http://www.mikroe.com/en/books/picbook/7_08chapter.htm for an example.