Dennis Atwood

How to power an LED

Dennis — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:06:17 +0000

For those of you just starting with electronics, here is a quick explanation of how to power your LEDs, and why selecting the right resistor is so important.

First off, LEDs are diodes. They happen to emit light, but you must think of them as diodes, not lamps.

What is a diode? Well you should already [...]

Millisecond clock with a PIC

Dennis — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:40:04 +0000

One of the first things I tried to do when I learned Assembly back in middle school was to make an ultra precise timer. Much to my surprise this is very difficult! Computer processors aren’t very good at keeping track of time. The problem is that they’re always being interrupted (literally, so I guess this [...]

Before you buy…

Dennis — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:44:42 +0000

Harbor Freight is a great place to get inexpensive, hobby-grade tools, but it’s hit or miss. If you’re ordering online it’s really tough to tell the quality of an item, and even in the store sometimes it’s not apparent how something will hold up.

Do yourself a favor and check out HFReviews before you buy. If [...]

McMaster-Carr…

Dennis — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:21:13 +0000

…is an awesome company. (but UPS is not) If you haven’t heard of them before, go to www.mcmaster.com right now.

I ordered 3 R8 collets from them just before the holidays and UPS lost my package. The tracking showed delivered to “front door” but it never made it to my apartment. I sent an email to [...]