Coming up in Silicon Chip
Making Power from Rubbish
Australia is having increasing difficulty finding somewhere to dump our rubbish and with the shutdown of large power stations, we're also facing an electricity shortage. Why don't we kill two birds with one stone, by burning waste
to generate electricity?
Advertising Index
Altronics...............................74-77
Dave Thompson...................... 103
Digi-Key Electronics.................... 3
Freetronics.................................. 7
Navman Drive Duo review
Hare & Forbes....................... OBC
This combined dashcam and satellite navigation unit combines one of the best
dash cameras we've seen with an advanced navigation system including lane
guidance, speed limit warnings and a suite of assisted driving technologies.
Leo Simpson takes it on a comprehensive road test.
Jaycar............................ IFC,49-56
RCWL-0516 motion and CT0007MS soil moisture sensors
KitStop....................................... 12
Jim Rowe describes the operation of these two different types of sensors from
Elecrow. The RCWL-0516 is a microwave radar motion sensor while the CT0007MS senses soil moisture content and both can be easily hooked up to
an Arduino or Micromite.
LEACH Co Ltd............................. 5
Keith Rippon Kit Assembly...... 103
Keysight Technologies................. 9
LD Electronics......................... 103
LEDsales................................. 103
Microchip Technology.............. IBC
WiFi Water Tank Level Meter
This project uses an ESP8266-based Arduino and a pressure transducer to
log a water level over WiFi to the cloud. It can be solar powered and also acts
as a simple weather station.
Ocean Controls......................... 11
PCBcart................................... 35
Sesame Electronics................ 103
10-LED Bar/Dot Graph
SC Online Shop...............100-101
This is a great project for beginners since it's easy to put together, useful for
a number of tasks and you can understand how it works. Use it to display a
battery voltage level, audio sound level, RF signal level or just about any other
task where you need to show a voltage range.
SC Radio, TV & Hobbies DVD... 96
Note: these features are planned or are in preparation and should appear
within the next few issues of Silicon Chip.
The Loudspeaker Kit.com......... 60
The February 2018 issue is due on sale in newsagents by Thursday, January
25th. Expect postal delivery of subscription copies in Australia between January
23rd and February 9th.
Silicon Chip Binders................. 93
Silicon Chip Subscriptions..... 102
Tronixlabs................................ 103
Vintage Radio Repairs............ 103
Wagner Electronics................... 10
Notes & Errata
GPS-based Frequency Reference, March 2007: A newer version of the software (v4) is now available on the online shop.
This newer version accepts an NMEA data stream at 9600 baud, to suit most recent GPS receiver modules.
VS1053 Arduino Music Player, July 2017: The software has been updated to fix the following issues:
(1) pressing any of the bottom row of keys on the keypad during playback would cause the player to lock up. This was
due to that pin being connected to D10 (SS), which was in use by the SPI module. Pin D0 (RX), the only free pin, is now
used instead;
(2) recording drop-outs have been solved by writing data to the SD card in larger blocks (ie, writing less frequently);
(3) the player would lock up if certain file types were played back after recording. This was due to the correct plugin not being reloaded after recording, which has been fixed;
(4) a few small additional improvements were made.
Touchscreen 6GHz+ Frequency Counter, October-December 2017: REG1 and REG3 are TPS73701 regulators, as
shown in the parts list on page 33 of the October 2017 issue, not TPS73700 as shown in the circuit diagram (Fig.2) on page
30 of that same issue.
Kelvin the Cricket, October 2017: the parts list on page 46 gives the incorrect Jaycar catalog code for the piezo buzzer.
It should be AB-3440.
Vintage Radio, November 2017: in Figs.1 & 2, coupling capacitor C4 has been drawn connected to the wrong side of L2.
It is connected to the plate of V1, not the junction of L2 and L3.
104
Silicon Chip
Celebrating 30 Years
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