Pero – HELENTRONICA

January 22, 2021

TouchGFX on a custom made low cost board with the ILI9341 controller over SPI

Introduction STMicroelectronics has spent last couple of years developing their embedded graphics framework called TouchGFX. This very powerful graphics engine makes it possible to include snazzy, smartphone-like screens and widgets into the embedded application, what I feel like becomes defacto a standard nowadays. Along with it, they shipped a lot of dev boards and reference … Continue reading TouchGFX on a custom made low cost board with the ILI9341 controller over SPI

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019

A Year in a Review

Introduction Yes, new year is here and it’s a perfect time to get to this blog back again. For this post I decided to look back at some social aspects of my engineer’s year. New Job As of end of 2017 I joined a new company – IMS Nanofabrication. It’s an Austria based semiconductor fab … Continue reading A Year in a Review

December 10, 2017December 16, 2017

Building a Circulator out of Ceramics

Introduction During my time as a PhD student, I had an opportunity to work in the laboratory of ceramic technologies. I got to produce various electronic components based on so-called low temperature co-fired ceramics, or LTCC. Although it’s been more than 2 years since I left that lab, I found some time to reflect back … Continue reading Building a Circulator out of Ceramics

October 2, 2017October 2, 2017

Playing with an LMG670 power analyzer

Introduction Recently, I got my hands on a not-every-day piece of electronic instrumentation, a so-called power analyzer LMG670 by company ZES Zimmer. I was told “it’s just a big multimeter” and I could use it to test power efficiency of our system. Power analyzer allows us to measure voltage, current, power and all relatable values on one, two … Continue reading Playing with an LMG670 power analyzer

May 3, 2017May 4, 2017

Advanced PCB Layout Course by Fedevel Academy

Introduction Being a freelancer, one can never stop improving himself, get a new trade or sometimes even to revise the things he has already mastered. With this in mind, I came across Advanced PCB Layout Course by Fedevel Academy, a hardware design/consultancy company by great engineer Robert Feranec. This post is about my impressions, experiences … Continue reading Advanced PCB Layout Course by Fedevel Academy

December 23, 2016October 2, 2017

Playing with a signal demodulator

Last week I got a Christmas present! Actually, it’s not a present, it’s a tool for work. But it is a brand new spectrum analyzer! Actually, it’s not brand new, it’s at least 15 years old. The basement guy found it in the company’s basement and brought it to my office to see if I … Continue reading Playing with a signal demodulator

November 8, 2016January 19, 2017

Building an ARM based microcomputer at home

Introduction Having my reflow solder oven finished, I couldn’t wait to see how far can I challenge it with complex circuit boards and tiny components. I decided to build a system with components that are tricky to solder, such as BGA and QFN packages. Not interested in designing the whole circuit on my own, I … Continue reading Building an ARM based microcomputer at home

August 22, 2016September 8, 2016

Remember the memories

Introduction I’ve been trying to sort out all those computer memories in some meaningful order in my head for some time and it turned out to be not an easy job. Partly because of my head and partly because of all the various memory types out there: volatile, non-volatile, read-only, RAM, DRAM, SDRAM, permanent, Flash…does … Continue reading Remember the memories

June 14, 2016June 20, 2016

1 GHz Bandpass Filter with Distributed Elements

Introduction Working in a microwave engineering area I learned that classic components like capacitors or inductors are ditched away from the filter design and so called distributed elements are used. It means, basically, that inductances, capacitors, LC circuits are created using conductive lines on PCB instead of soldering old school components. Pretty cool, I thought, let’s … Continue reading 1 GHz Bandpass Filter with Distributed Elements

May 4, 2016September 8, 2016

PID Controller for a DIY Reflow Solder Oven

Introduction Some time ago I started a project of reusing an old, crappy toaster oven as a reflow solder oven. I did some necessary improvements on the oven, like adding a glass wool isolation. I also examined dynamic characteristics of the oven by looking at its transient response to a step input power. Everything was … Continue reading PID Controller for a DIY Reflow Solder Oven