Planet Arduino

Competition over.

The post April 2012 Competition Results appeared first on tronixstuff.

Competition over!

The post April 2012 Competition appeared first on tronixstuff.

Hello everyone!

During July there was another competition which was quite fun, so from August and onwards we shall do it again. The winner ‘S.R.’ won the minor prize so the major prize jackpots into this month. Running these competitions are a way of saying thank you to my readers, and to generate some interaction. So …

All you have to do for a chance to win is the following:

1. Read the blog posts and articles in August, as there will be six questions you will need to answer placed randomly amongst the posts. To keep track, subscribe using one of the methods on the right hand side of this page
2. When you have answers for all six questions, email them to competition@tronixstuff.com
3. If you follow me on twitter (@tronixstuff) and retweet one post in August, you will receive two entries, so put your twitter address in your email.
4. On September the 1st, all the email addresses will be placed in a random draw and one selected. If the entry drawn has all six questions correct, they will win the major prize!
5. If the first entry drawn does not have six correct answers, they will win the minor prize, and the major prize will carry over until September, to be combined with the new major prize.

The prizes!

Major prize

The major prize for August consists of the following:

• One assembled, used JYE Tech Digital Storage Oscilloscope – from the kit review;
• One new pair of 315 MHz wireless data modules, as used in Getting Started with Arduino – Chapter Eleven;
• And something different, the new Texas Instruments MSP430 Launchpad kit, including evaluation board, two MCUs  and the USB cable.

Minor prize

The minor prize for August is John’s Fun with LEDs! pack, consisting of:

• ten each of red, green, yellow and orange 5mm LEDs;
• four RGB 10mm diffused LEDs
• three 74HC595 shift registers
• two Texas Instruments TLC5940 16-channel LED driver ICs
• two LM3914 bar graph/dot driver ICs
• 20 x 560 ohm 1% resistors (they missed the photo call)

Hopefully everyone can have some fun reading about electronics and learning along the way. As with any competition, there are a few rules:

1. If you have won a previous competition, you cannot enter
2. If you know me personally, you cannot enter
3. The prizes carry no warranty, we accept no liability for anything at all that they may cause
4. Prizes only include what is in the photograph, and will be sent via standard airmail free of charge
5. My decision is final
6. You can witness the draw in person with prior arrangement
7. The time used is Australian Eastern Standard Time (GMT: +10)

If you cannot wait for a chance to win, the DSO and and a range of LEDs are available from our friends at Little Bird Electronics.

So keep your eyes peeled and have fun!

Hello everyone!

During June there was a small competition which was quite fun, so from July and onwards we shall do it again – but on a larger scale. All you have to do for a chance to win is the following:

1. Read the blog posts and articles in July, as there will be five questions you will need to answer placed randomly amongst the posts. To keep track, subscribe using one of the methods on the right hand side of this page
2. When you have answers for all five questions, email them to competition@tronixstuff.com
3. If you follow me on twitter (@tronixstuff) and retweet one post in July, you will receive two entries, so put your twitter address in your email.
4. On August 1st, all the email addresses will be placed in a random draw and one selected. If the entry drawn has all five questions correct, they will win the major prize!
5. If the first entry drawn does not have five correct answers, they will win the minor prize, and the major prize will carry over until August, to be combined with the new major prize.

The prizes!

Major prize

One assembled, used JYE Tech Digital Storage Oscilloscope – from the kit review.

Minor prize

One assembled, used JYE Tech Capacitance Meter – from the kit review

Hopefully everyone can have some fun reading about electronics and learning along the way. As with any competition, there are a few rules:

1. If you have won a previous competition, you cannot enter
2. If you know me personally, you cannot enter
3. The prizes carry no warranty, we accept no liability for anything at all that they may cause
4. Prizes only include what is in the photograph, and will be sent via standard airmail free of charge
5. My decision is final
6. You can witness the draw in person with prior arrangement
7. The time used is Australian Eastern Standard Time (GMT: +10)

If you cannot wait for a chance to win, the DSO and capacitance meter kits are available from our friends at Little Bird Electronics.

So keep your eyes peeled and have fun!

Hello everyone

Some of you may have noticed I slipped a quiz question inside of the post about resistors. Out of the six thousand people who visited tronixstuff between publishing that article and midday today, six people submitted an answer – and all of them were correct.

Where was the question? I’ll show you:

The first hint was here – look for the “***” (click on the image to enlarge)

And the reference to the *** was at the bottom of the post: (click on image to enlarge)

The question:

Why do zero-ohm resistors exist?

It even stumped me for a moment. The best explanation is from wikipedia of all places:

A zero-ohm link or zero-ohm resistor is a wire link used to connect traces on a printed circuit board that is packaged in the same format as a resistor. This format allows it to be placed on the circuit board using same automated equipment used to place other resistors instead of requiring a separate machine to install a jumper or other wire. Zero-ohm resistors may be packaged like cylindrical resistors, or like surface-mount resistors.

The resistance is only approximately zero; only a maximum (typically 10–50 mΩ) is specified. Thus, a fractional tolerance (as a percentage of the zero-ohm ideal value) would be infinite and is not specified.

An axial through-hole zero-ohm resistor is generally marked with a single black band, the symbol for 0 in the resistor color code. Surface-mount resistors are generally marked with a single “0″ or “000″.

All the answers received were the same, just worded differently. However, with only six replies – I numbered the emails from 1 to 6, rolled a dice … and the lucky winner is:

* * * Carlin G. * * *

The lucky winner will be receiving a box of useful things to the value of around Au$40:

This month’s prize consisted of:

• a 16 x 2 character HD44780-compatible LCD module
• some header pins to solder into the LCD
• spacers and screws for the LCD
• two PHAnderson serial LCD microcontrollers
• a Hextronix HXT900 micro servo

So there we have it. Another quiz will be inserted into posts starting July – so keep reading and good luck for next time!