Category Archives: dac

Back to Video Basics with an ESP32 VGA Display

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In a world where standards come and go with alarming speed, there’s something comforting about VGA. It’s the least common denominator of video standards, and seeing that chunky DB15 connector on the back of a computer means that no matter what, you’ll be able to get something from it, if you can just find a VGA cable in your junk bin.

But that’s the PC world; what about microcontrollers? Can you coax VGA video from them? Yes, you can, with an ESP32, a handful of resistors, and a little bit of clever programming. At least that’s what [bitluni] has managed …read more

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Arduino Nitrox Analyzer for the Submarine Hacker

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For Hackaday readers who don’t spend their free time underwater, nitrox is a blend of nitrogen and oxygen that’s popular with scuba divers. Compared to atmospheric air, nitrox has a higher concentration of oxygen; which not only allows divers to spend more time underwater but also reduces the risk of decompression sickness. Of course when fiddling with the ratio of gases you breathe there’s a not inconsequential risk of dying, so nitrox diving requires special training and equipment to make sure the gas mixture is correct.

Divers can verify the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen in their nitrox tanks with …read more

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Arduino Nitrox Analyzer for the Submarine Hacker

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For Hackaday readers who don’t spend their free time underwater, nitrox is a blend of nitrogen and oxygen that’s popular with scuba divers. Compared to atmospheric air, nitrox has a higher concentration of oxygen; which not only allows divers to spend more time underwater but also reduces the risk of decompression sickness. Of course when fiddling with the ratio of gases you breathe there’s a not inconsequential risk of dying, so nitrox diving requires special training and equipment to make sure the gas mixture is correct.

Divers can verify the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen in their nitrox tanks with …read more

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3000W Unicycle’s Only Limitation Is “Personal Courage”

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Electric vehicles are fertile ground for innovation because the availability of suitable motors, controllers, and power sources makes experimentation accessible even to hobbyists. Even so, [John Dingley] has been working on such vehicles since about 2009, and his latest self-balancing electric unicycle really raises the bar by multiple notches. It sports a monstrous 3000 Watt brushless hub motor intended for an electric motorcycle, and [John] was able to add numerous touches such as voice feedback and 1950’s styling using surplus aircraft and motorcycle parts. To steer, the frame changes shape slightly with help of the handlebars to allow the driver’s …read more

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Software Defined Television on an ESP32

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Composite video from a single-board computer? Big deal — every generation of Raspberry Pi has had some way of getting composite signals out and onto the retro monitor of your choice. But composite video from an ESP32? That’s a thing now too.

There are some limitations, of course, not least of which is finding a monitor that can accept a composite input, but since [bitluni]’s hack uses zero additional components, we can overlook those. It really is as simple as hooking the monitor up to pin 25 and ground because, like his recent ESP32 AM radio station, the magic is …read more

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Laser Galvo Control via Microcontroller’s DAC

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Mirror galvanometers (‘galvos’ for short) are the worky bits in a laser projector; they are capable of twisting a mirror extremely quickly and accurately. With two of them, a laser beam may be steered in X and Y to form patterns. [bdring] had purchased some laser galvos and decided to roll his own control system with the goal of driving the galvos with the DAC (digital to analog) output of a microcontroller. After that, all that was needed to make it draw some shapes was a laser and a 3D printed fixture to hold everything in the right alignment.

The …read more

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ESP32, We Have Ways to Make You Talk

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One of our favorite scenes from the [James Bond] franchise is the classic exchange between [Goldfinger] and [Bond]. [Connery] (the One True Bond) says, “You expect me to talk?” And the reply is, “No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” When it comes to the ESP32, though, apparently [XTronical] expects it to talk. He posted a library to simplify playing WAV files on the ESP32. There is also a video worth watching, below.

Actually, you might want to back up to his previous post where he connects a speaker via one of the digital to analog converters on the …read more

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ESP32 Makes for World’s Worst Radio Station

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We can say one thing for [bitluni]: the BOMs for his projects, like this ESP32 AM radio transmitter, are always on the low side. That’s because he leverages software to do jobs traditionally accomplished with hardware, always with instructive results.

In this case, the job at hand is creating an RF oscillator in the broadcast AM band and modulating some audio onto it. From his previous experience using an ESP32 to watch video on an oscilloscope, [bitluni] knew that the microcontroller’s DACs were up to the task of producing an 800-kHz signal, and he managed to produce a more-or-less sine …read more

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Ocelot Arcade System Illustrates the Scope of Vector Graphics

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Who knows how far the Vectrex system, or vector graphics gaming in general could have gone if not for the crash of ’83? The console wars might have been completely different if not for this market saturation-based reset button.

[Matt Carr] doesn’t own a Vectrex, but he does have a Tektronix 465 oscilloscope. After an intense labor of love and documentation, he also has a shiny new vector graphics arcade system that he built himself. It’s based on a dsPIC33 and uses a dual-channel DAC to produce wire frame 3-D graphics and send X-Y coordinates to the ‘scope via phono …read more

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Watch Video on a Oscilloscope with an ESP32

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[bitluni] got a brand new scope, and he couldn’t be happier. No, really — check the video below; he’s really happy. And to celebrate, he turned his scope into a vector display using an ESP32.

Using a scope in X-Y mode is nothing new, of course. The technique is used to display everything from Lissajous patterns from an SDR to bouncing balls from an analog computer. Taken on as more of an exercise to learn how to use his new tool than a practical project, [bitluni]’s project starts by using two DACs on an ESP32 to create simple Lissajous patterns …read more

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