Picked up two new (for me) electronics magazines.
Highlights of the Silicon Chip:
- Solar-powered lighting controller – a detailed description of the issues involved in the design. I’ve always been a fan of the Radio & Hobbies etc house style of technical writing. I grew up on in fact so it’s like mother’s milk to me.
- There’s also a very neat and compact 12v Stereo Amplifier that seems to be designed for buskers with SLA batteries. How many banjo players have you seen who need a PA? How many buskers play the banjo? I think there’s a joke waiting to pop out there.
Highlights of the Elektor issue:
- Sceptre, a 32-bit ARM7 fast prototyping system. Open source, open hardware and open mobile. The project is a response to the low calculating power of the Arduino. This looks like a good way to dive head first into microcontrollers.
- An interesting article on the carbon footprint and appliances, standby power, manufacture and distribution and of course in generating the power to run the appliances.
