How to extend an I2C bus

By mvuilleu, in Electronics, september 08,2024.

Following on from our quick tutorial on I2C, we're going to take a closer look at a particular case that often causes problems: the use of long wires for I2C communications. This is particularly true of Yoctopuce sensors that you can split, if you decide to offset the sensor part by several meters.

Using an I2C infrared camera

By mvuilleu, in Electronics, DIY and Programming, february 10,2023.

There are now small infrared cameras in the form of break-out boards that are very affordable and easy to integrate into automation projects. Surprisingly, they often use the I2C protocol to transfer data. Today, we show you how to use a Yocto-I2C to interface this type of camera.

The secrets of the Yocto-(Maxi)Knob

By mvuilleu, in Electronics, august 12,2022.

Reading a potentiometer, push button or other resistive sensor via USB is a priori not very complicated. By the way, the Yocto-Knob is one of the very first modules we put for sale more than ten years ago. However, depending on the applications, the needs are not always the same. Therefore, over time we added new settings in order to refine the measures. Let's see this in details...

Reed switch vs. Hall effect sensor

By martinm, in Electronics and DIY, august 05,2022.

Two years ago, we told you about reed switches, especially to warn you about the difficulties that you can encounter when you want to use them to build a rev counter. But we had somewhat forgotten to tell you about Hall effect sensors, which can be a welcome substitute.

GSM power usage for sensor monitoring

By mvuilleu, in Measures, Electronics and Internet of Things, november 20,2021.

When you must design a system that sends back measures through a GSM connection, there are two physical quantities that you want to estimate: que quantity of transferred data and the power consumption. We already had the opportunity to provide orders of magnitude for data consumption in a previous post, but we are going to see today how much power is needed to send back data periodically through a 3G or 4G GSM connection.