Fighting with computers

I have been intrigued for a while with TinyG controller and their S-shaped speed curves. It is an evolution from simpler trapezoidal speed patterns used by GRBL software and by most 3D printer firmwares out there too. However, TinyG (besides a South Korean music group) is not designed to work on a regular Arduino but over more powerful Atmel processors, the XMega series. While the software is open source, it does not help if you do not have the right processor. But lately I am giving a course where I have borrowed an Arduino DUE, which happens to be supported by TinyG project too. Uploading the code has been a bit of challenge, partly due to my attempt of using a USB cable with broken data wires (I did not know that as I use it for charging my cellphone). But even with a good cable, the upload process, at least using OSX was a bit of a challenge. It all comes down to a not entirely cooked script from their github . As I am not familiar with ARM development conventions, I see ...

While I have been doing electronics since I was a kid I never owned an oscilloscope before. At a local meeting of Arduino users a colleague mentioned me there was a very good offer of a four channel sampling oscilloscope. Not that I need to use it very often but I was curious enough to see how instruments have evolved lately I decided it was about time to have my own scope so it was kind of a birthday gift I bought to myself (if that makes any sense). First thing I have measured, just because it's right next to me is the the ringing of my 3D printer's hotend PID regulator output. It has been mentioned voltages can get pretty high over there in RAMPS boards and boy, that is true. At around a 50-volt spike is produced when the load is switched off. And the real value can only be appreciated if you freeze the sampled signal and expand widely the time axis, as the spike duration is below 1us. I guess total energy is so small the MOSFET is not really damaged (as it has been sitt...