In the quest for the perfect diagram I dig up some ancient history. Find a device I forgot I ever used, and a diagram that almost says it all. … More I think I’ve found my favourite I2C diagram
When someone tells you to “read the datasheet” for an MCU, they are actually referring to a family of documents. I asked ChatGPT to tell me all about it. This was their response. … More Unraveling the Tapestry of Microcontroller Documentation
An I2C target device has a 7-bit address. We can address a device for read or write transactions. What could be simpler? In my 30 years of experience, every year I have witnessed an occasion when someone got this wrong. With seasoned members of the team to hand it normally gets resolved quickly, but sometimes you find an engineer, who knows it is easy, and so has spent too long trying to fix it before admitting they are lost. … More I2C addressing is easy
We all have our horror stories of how a misconfigured oscilloscope can lead to hours of head-scratching frustration. My latest problem cost me about 30 minutes of troubleshooting. Just yesterday I was butting heads with a simple triggering issue on my new scope. … More My silly oscilloscope ( an RTFM adventure)
A few years ago, I encountered an issue in my project involving an I2C device that didn’t always work after a system reset.
In an ideal world, any reset should emulate a power-on reset, but we sometimes encounter warm start issues. The problem I was encountering certainly started feeling like a warm start problem, but I wasn’t sure what was going on. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin… … More An adventure in debugging an I2C bus hang
I don’t often need to draw timing diagrams, but occasionally I do. It’s not an everyday task. When talking about a bug, I find it is easiest to share a captured trace from the scope. When trying to describe what an expected signal should be, then I turn to the whiteboard or a piece of paper. There are however times in my life when I am trying to specify how a new hardware block should work; this requires a clean, easy to edit, diagram to share. I have found a few text to image tools that really help a lot. … More How I draw (simple) timing diagrams.
The author has transitioned to a remote role, freeing up time to dedicate to their blog focusing on embedded systems, with an aim for consistent, valuable content. … More Personal blogs and work schedules don’t mix well.
The book “Debugging” by David J. Agans offers nine principles to solve elusive software and hardware problems, containing anecdotes and sagely advice. Despite dating from 2002, its principles remain relevant. … More Debugging by David J. Agans
It’s the classic question, should you find time to do something or make time to do something. It’s so easy to work on the things that need doing right now, and not have time to do the things that don’t need to be done now, but if you don’t do them, they’ll never get done. … More Find Time, or Make Time?
I’ve just got myself a new toy. PCBite, from Sensepeek, is system of spring loaded board holders that magnetically mount on a sheet of steel, and a series of probes that mount to the same base plate with flexible arms. Looking at the product photos you would think the flexible arms are typical goosenecks, with … More PCBite – an extra pair of hands.
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