Here's a graphic illustration of why mechanical switch debouncing is so important:     It's the output of a push-button switch when I press it. The metal contacts inside the switch bounce against each other, creating two pulses when I...

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that. Now I've got a long-term project to finally get back into electronics and blogging after an almost 10 year gap. I'm building an 8-bit computer on breadboards, based...

Wow - it's been more than 6 years since I had some serious time to play with electronics and blogged here! Life and work just got in the way. But no more! After spending about a week sorting out my...

I've always been intrigued by vacuum fluorescent displays (VFDs) so I picked up the Ice Tube Clock Kit from AdaFruit Industries that uses a Russian VFD tube. (Click any photo for a 1024x768 image.) Here's what came in the kit:...

It's been quite a while since I've had bandwidth to sit down and get stuck into electronics again, but now I'm home for almost two months, so I'll be blogging more on here. Over the last few months I've discovered...

Well, summer's over and that means I can justify being indoors playing with (and blogging about) electronics again. Expect this blog to get busy again! Back in March I blogged about building an interactive light panel from Evil Mad Science Laboratories....

It's been another few weeks of traveling and client work so I haven't had any chance to tinker. Apologies to those subscribers expecting the frenetic pace of my SQL blog - ain't gonna happen. I'm at home for a few...

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to play hands-on with electronics because I've been busy with client work and out-of-town traveling. To continue satisfying my must-be-tinkering-with-something urges, I hit upon the idea of using some old...

In the last post I figured out how to drive a 74HC595 shift register to control 8 LEDs from only 3 digital outputs of the Arduino. Now I've taken that a step further and cascaded (sometimes called daisy-chained) four 595s...

One of the parts that makes possible the scrolling message kit I built over the weekend (see Kit building: Hansen Hobbies mini-scrolling LED sign kit) is a shift register. This is a very neat device that uses at least 2...