First steps with the HC-05 on the BeagleBone Black

Wireless communication between an embedded device and PC or smartphone is easily accomplished using the HC-05 bluetooth module. The BeagleBone is a great tool to explore the features of it and one can even settle with bluetooth in his final application.

Data acquisition over USB based on an ATTiny: review

Data acquisition peripherals for computers make a lot of science experiments easier and open up new ways of automation. In other words, they’re fun. I’ve recently come across a really cool AVR project done by Jacques Lepot, The cheapest dual trace scope in the galaxy, and I felt that I need to build one. Although his original blog post lacks quite some details, reading the comments and doing a bit of research revealed most of them. Here I’d like to present a collection of links with the key information which helps in debugging, and also provide a new software on the PC side to collect data (supporting Windows 7, unlike the one presented in the original post).

Data logging and graphing using RRDtool

When it comes to logging some data over a long period of time, RRDtool is a convenient solution. Creating and updating the RRD database is simple, graphing is fairly easy as well. To make the graphs available over the web, I chose to install the lighttpd web server.

Getting started with the ADS1248 on the BeagleBone Black

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to acquire analog data with the BeagleBone Black using the ADS1248 analog-to-digital converter IC. Although the BeagleBone has an onboard 8-channel 12 bit ADC, you might need either more channels or a better resolution. The ADS1248 has 4 differential/7 single-ended inputs and a resolution of 24 bits. Furthemore, the ADS1248 has a built-in current source which can be multiplexed to an analog input or a dedicated pin making a ratiometric resistance measurement pretty straightforward (however, in this introductory post I will not make use of this).