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SILICON SILIC CHIP www.siliconchip.com.au Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD Production Manager Greg Swain, B.Sc. (Hons.) Technical Editor John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.) Technical Staff Ross Tester Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc Nicholas Vinen Bao Smith, B.Sc Photography Ross Tester Reader Services Ann Morris Advertising Enquiries Glyn Smith Phone (02) 9939 3295 Mobile 0431 792 293 glyn<at>siliconchip.com.au Regular Contributors Brendan Akhurst David Maddison B.App.Sc. (Hons 1), PhD, Grad.Dip.Entr.Innov. Kevin Poulter Dave Thompson SILICON CHIP is published 12 times a year by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. ACN 003 205 490. ABN 49 003 205 490. All material is copyright ©. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Printing: Offset Alpine, Lidcombe, NSW. Distribution: Network Distribution Company. Subscription rates: $105.00 per year in Australia. For overseas rates, see our website or the subscriptions page in this issue. Editorial office: Unit 1, 234 Harbord Rd, Brookvale, NSW 2100. Postal address: PO Box 139, Collaroy Beach, NSW 2097. Phone (02) 9939 3295. E-mail: silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au ISSN 1030-2662 Recommended & maximum price only. 2  Silicon Chip Publisher’s Letter El cheapo electronic modules – the new standard components Many people who are electronic enthusiasts probably regard surface mount components as the biggest and most challenging change to their hobby. Surface mount components are quite a bit smaller than equivalent components with leads and they can be a lot more tricky to handle and solder into place. But most enthusiasts are adapting to and even embracing the change, as it allows much more compact PCBs than would ever have been possible in the past. But there is another change which is a direct result of the huge range of surface mount components that are now available – tiny and very cheap modules. So even if you don’t like surface mount components, you are likely to be using some of these modules in your future projects. Arduino computing has been the main catalyst for the sudden appearance of these modules and the vast majority of them are marketed as Arduino-compatible modules or “shields”. Now calling them “Arduino-compatible” is all very well but it tends to disguise the fact that they usually have much wider applications than in Arduino projects. For example, they can be used with most other microcontrollers – you just have to know how to drive and control them. As evidence of this fact, SILICON CHIP has published five projects based on Geoff Graham’s Micromite and all of these used a so-called Arduino-compatible module. Those used were a USBto-serial converter (Micromite Touchscreen BackPack, February 2016), ultrasonic distance sensor (Parking Assistant, March 2016), GPS module (Touchscreen Boat Computer, April 2016), GPS or RTC module (Micromite-based Super Clock, July 2016), RTC and USB serial port (Appliance Energy Meter, August to October 2016). But a lot of these Arduino-compatible modules don’t need any sort of controller at all. They can be used in ordinary analog circuits with perhaps simple logic control using a few CMOS chips. For example, the ultrasonic sensor module listed above looks just like two piezoelectric transducers and a 40kHz resonator mounted on tiny a PCB with a 4-pin socket – nothing too complicated about that. Well, not quite. The underside of the PCB has three surface mount ICs and quite a few passive components to provide the “smarts” for the module. The net result is that it is feasible to control it with a microprocessor or some simpler CMOS logic. There must be hundreds of Arduino modules available around the world and you can see a range of them listed on the Jaycar Electronics website at www. jaycar.com.au Some of these are quite simple while others are really powerful devices in their own right: UHF data transmitter and receiver modules, DDS signal generators, OLED/LCD modules, touch-screen TFT/LCD modules, temperature/humidity sensor modules, micro-SD card interfaces and many more. The important point to be aware of is that these modules are a wonderful resource: compact, easy to accommodate on a larger PCB, and most importantly, really cheap. However, information on what they do and how they work is often hard to come by. So this month we have the first of a series of articles describing these modules. It covers the DS3231 real time clock & calendar module. It took a while for electronics engineers to start using integrated circuits back in the early 1970s but we think these tiny modules will similarly become just standard components. In this case, it will happen in a very short time. In fact, it already is happening. Leo Simpson siliconchip.com.au