Resources

Elec. Reference

A Beginner's Guide to MIDI   Sep 1,2003
     A Beginner's Guide to MIDI, a good introduction to what MIDI is.

A simple physiological monitoring suite for Virtual Environment Research   Jul 31,2005
     This paper details some methods and circuits for physiological monitoring. The circuits look fairly simple to use.

Automatic Position Reporting System   Sep 10,2005
     APRS is a system that combines GPS with short-range packet radio to provide positioning data even in places where GPS doesn't easily reach.

BasicX mailing list   Aug 29,2003
     BasicX mailing list - an active and very useful resource for the BX-24 and BX-01.

BatchPCB and OpenCircuits   Feb 20,2006
     Sparkfun has started two new spin-off sites recently, BatchPCB and OpenCircuits.... It's slower than other PCB fab sites, because they manufacture them in batches, but it's one of the cheapest I've seen.

Britney Spears' Guide to Semiconductor Physics   Sep 13,2003
      Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics...

Capacitor Codes   Aug 28,2003
      Capacitor Codes by Transitronics...

Contact Mic   Aug 29,2003
      Making your own Contact Mic from Radio Shack parts...

Contact Mic Preamp   Aug 29,2003
      Making a preamp for a contact mic...

Control-L   Aug 29,2003
     Control-L connector wiring details.

Current Limiting Resistor Calculator for LEDs   Jul 22,2005
     Got an LED that you don't know the ideal resistor value for?... Thanks to Ramakrishnan Subramanian for the link.

Dan O'Sullivan's Physical Computing Pages   Sep 13,2003
     Dan O'Sullivan's Physical Computing Page - The original course at ITP. Dan's pages are more conversational and detailed than mine, the best resource.

Datasheet Archive   Jun 24,2004
     The Datasheet Archive is an archive of tons and tons of datasheets on all kinds of parts, both those still in production and those not. Thanks to Daniel Hirschmann for the link.

Dave Houston's Home Automation Page   Sep 13,2003
     Dave Houston's Home Automation pages - All you ever wanted to know about X10.

Ed Bringas' Phys Comp Journal   Jul 22,2005
     Ed Bringas has a lot of good notes on projects he's working on or has worked on. A useful phys comp blog.

Electronic Projects   Jun 24,2004
     WebEE.com has a number of schematics and tutorials for building electronic projects. This site assumes you're very comfortable with the electronics, and includes a number of more advanced articles, including details on building a heart monitor, basic digital PCoscilloscope, RF spectrum analyzer, and more.

Electronics Parts Search via Alltheweb   May 13,2006
     Alltheweb.com has a pretty good search engine that does a really good job pulling up data sheets for various electronic parts. Thanks to Geoff Smith for the link.

Electronics in Meccano   May 31,2004
     Electronics in Meccano is an introduction to electronics intended for Meccano hobbyists, but contains some good explanations of general electronic principles. Thanks to Amos Bloomberg for the link.

Embedded Systems Glossary   Aug 29,2003
      A useful glossary of terms often encountered in embedded systems, microcontroller applications, etc....

Engineer Bob   Sep 13,2003
     \Engineer Bob - Links to resource pages on many technical subjects.

Ever get confused between pico,   Nov 21,2004
     Ever get confused between pico, nano, milli, micro, and other orders of magnitude used to mark resistors, capacitors and other electronic components.... Thanks to Jeff Gray for the link.

Findchips   Aug 28,2003
     Findchips - Got a chip that you can't identify? Enter the part number here!

Global Spec   Mar 31,2004
     Similar to the Thomas Register, but more specific to engineering needs.... Thanks to Brian Maniere for the link.

Hacking a PIR motion sensor   Aug 29,2003
      Hacking a Motion Sensor - for those cheap motion sensors you get in security lights...

How Stuff Works   Sep 13,2003
     How Stuff Works - Really a category unto itself.

How to use an Oscilloscope   Aug 29,2003
     How to use an oscillosope and all the fun things you can do with it.

Interfacebus.com   Feb 8,2006
     Interfacebus.com is a very useful site covering a number of details about electronics, including Types of components, and details about them how to know what the package types of different components look like pinouts of many different connectors, like this one for USB Details of many electrical engineering standards, including voltage levels, timing, and so forth.

Interfacing Piezo Film to Electronics   Jul 31,2005
     Some good notes on using piezos as sensors. Thanks to Jamie Allen for the link.

Make your own OLEDs   Dec 29,2005
     Dan Mikesell sent this link to a site explaining how to make your own organic LEDs (OLEDs).

Massimo Banzi's Physical Interaction Design site   Dec 29,2004
     Massimo Banzi teaches physical interaction design at the Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea. His site contains many useful links and notes on electronics, sensors, and other physical computing-related topics.

Molecular Expressions Electricity & Magnetism Introduction   Sep 14,2003
     Molecular Expressions Electricity & Magnetism Introduction Nice presentation of capacitance, inductance, resistance, batteries, generators and other such things. The interactive java tutorials are especially nice.

Notes on Telephone Electronics   Sep 13,2003
      Larry Gaminde's Notes on Phone Line Electronics...

P.H. Anderson's site   Sep 13,2003
     Peter Anderson - Teaches a course in embedded Processor control, using many of the controllers and components this course uses.

Parallax   Aug 28,2003
     Parallax, Inc. - Makers of the BASIC Stamp. They have many other useful modules, and excellent examples and lessons.

Physical Computing Mailing List   Aug 29,2003
     ITP Physical Computing Mailing List - All things physical computing at ITP. Open to alumni and guests outside NYU as well.

Physical Computing in Spanish   Sep 25,2003
     Jaime Villarreal (ITP class of '01) has assembled online notes for physical computing in Spanish (he's teaching in Mexico City).

PicBasic List   Aug 29,2003
     Crownhill PicBasic Mailing List for discussing programming of PIC microcontrollers using Microengineering Labs' PicBasic and PicBasic Pro. An active and very useful list for PIC programmers.

Pinouts for many common data cables   May 4,2004
     Network Technologies, Inc. has this nice page that shows the pinouts of many common connectors: RS-232 serial, USB, VGA, and many more.... Thanks to Mark Argo for the link.

Potentiometer Tutorial   Sep 14,2003
     A nice tutorial on potentiometers, explaining the difference between linear pots and logarithmic pots. Thanks to Scott Wolynski for the link.

Protocols.com - a very good   Aug 30,2004
      Protocols.com - a very good list of networking protocols and explanations of their natures and the infrastructures they operate on. Thanks to Meredith Finkelstein for the link...

Radio Frequency Allocation Chart   Nov 23,2003
     A chart outlining the U.S. allocation of radio spectrum from 3KHz to 300Ghz.

Resistor Color Code Calculator   Aug 28,2003
      Resistor Color Code Calculator by Danny Goodman...

Rotary Encoders   Jul 31,2005
     If you're looking for a continuous rotation potentiometer, or you're looking to measure the number of turns of an axle or spindle, consider Rotary encoders. Rotary encoders measure rotation about an axis by producing a series of pulses as the shaft rotates. The more pulses produced per roration, the higher the resolution of the encoder. A typical encoder will give you 128 or 256 positions around a circle.

Schematic symbols for Illustrator   Oct 29,2006
     Here's a good set of schematic symbols for Illustrator, for those wanting to avoid circuit layout programs. These do a good job, and let you work in a familiar environment.

Schematics for alarms and sensors   Nov 26,2003
     Commlinx has a long list of schematics for alarm and security sensors on their site.

Sensors in Pure Data   Jan 23,2005
     Ian Smith-Heisters wrote some excellent notes as an extension to our Physical Computing book for people interested in programming PIC microcontrollers in assembly and interfacing them with Miller Puckette's Pure Data (PD). Thanks to Ian and Dan O'Sullivan for the link.

Serial Communication in OSX Terminal   Feb 13,2006
     I knew it had to be possible to view serial data in the OSX terminal window, but I'm not enough of a unix geek to figure it out.... Here's how to read and send serial data from the terminal in OSX: First, open Terminal.

Stamp List   Aug 29,2003
      Stamp List - Mailing list for users of the BASIC stamp, run by Parallax...

Stamp List Search Engine   Aug 29,2003
     Stamp List Search Engine - a search engine for the BASIC Stamp mailing list. Faster than Parallax's engine.

Tech Books for Free   Jan 23,2005
     Techbooksforfree is a useful source of technical books online on a number of subjects.

Tech Tools PIC List   Aug 29,2003
     The Tech Tools PIC list Mailing List Mostly for C programmers and assembly language programmers.

Toaster Oven Soldering   Nov 14,2005
     So we tried a few experiments in toaster oven soldering this weekend, and had limited success. In the end, it was easier to do the job with a soldering iron, because our surface mount chips were fairly big. But here's a few tutorials on others' attempts at it

Transistor Circuits   Oct 31,2004
     Kelsey Park School Electronics Club posted this in-depth but readable explanation of how transistors work. Useful if you want to understand how transistors act as current amplifiers.

Triac Circuit   Aug 29,2003
      Basic triac circuit...

USB Programming for the PIC   Feb 20,2006
     Some good notes on USB Programming for the PIC, from Daniel Hirschmann, tested by Amit Pitaru. Jeff Gray's Del.icio.us links on USB are good too.

Videonics serial info   Aug 29,2003
      Videonics video mixer MX and TM Control Port...

What's Inside Consumer Electronics   Sep 10,2005
     Electronic Products is a commercial service for people wanting to know what's in their competitors gear. Not exactly for the beginner looking to build it from scratch, but has some neat examples.