Concepts
These are the various concepts that people may need to know while learning a technology tutorial and could be required to complete a ‘hookup’ tutorial. Concepts are most often a general building block that may be built upon other concepts. Concepts can generally be learned without physical objects but are reinforced with a hookup tutorial.
MIDI Tutorial
Understanding the Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
Processor Interrupts with Arduino
What is an interrupt? In a nutshell, there is a method by which a processor can execute its normal program while continuously monitoring for some kind of event, or interrupt. There are two types of interrupts: hardware and software interrupts. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will focus on hardware interrupts.
Raspberry Pi SPI and I2C Tutorial
Learn how to use serial I2C and SPI buses on your Raspberry Pi using the wiringPi I/O library for C/C++ and spidev/smbus for Python.
External IO and Metastability
Why external signals can cause metastability and how to use constraint files to manage this
First FPGA Project - Getting Fancy with PWM
An initial project using Alchitry's onboard FPGA to manipulate PWM
Programming an FPGA
Come look at the basics of working with Field Programmable Gate Arrays.
How Does an FPGA Work?
The What, How, Why, and When of Field Programmable Gate Arrays, aka FPGAs
Understanding Thermal Resistance
Discussing what thermal resistance is, how it’s used for thermal management, and how to maximize the life of your project.
Logic Levels
Learn the difference between 3.3V and 5V devices and logic levels.
Accelerometer Basics
A quick introduction to accelerometers, how they work, and why they're used.
Gyroscope
Gyroscopes measure the speed of rotation around an axis and are an essential part in determines ones orientation in space.
What is a Circuit?
Every electrical project starts with a circuit. Don't know what a circuit is? We're here to help.
Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Ohm's Law
Learn about Ohm's Law, one of the most fundamental equations in all electrical engineering.
Pulse Width Modulation
An introduction to the concept of Pulse Width Modulation.
Analog vs. Digital
This tutorial covers the concept of analog and digital signals, as they relate to electronics.
PCB Basics
What exactly IS a PCB? This tutorial will breakdown what makes up a PCB and some of the common terms used in the PCB world.
Connectivity of the Internet of Things
An overview of the different protocols that can be used for the development of Internet of Things (IoT)-based projects.
I2C
An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded communications protocols in use today.
What is a Battery?
An overview of the inner workings of a battery and how it was invented.
Sending Sensor Data Over WiFi
This tutorial will show you how setup a simple peer-to-peer connection to send and receive sensor data between two ESP32 WiFi boards.
Introduction to DMX
DMX512 is an industry standard in lighting and stage design, whether it be controlling lights, motors, or lasers, DMX512 has many uses. In this tutorial we’ll cover DMX512 (Digital Multiplex with 512 pieces of information).
Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)
SPI is commonly used to connect microcontrollers to peripherals such as sensors, shift registers, and SD cards.
Monitor Sensor Data from Anywhere
Using WiFi to send sensor data from an ESP32 to a WiFi network and be able to read it from an IoT Dashboard from anywhere in the world.
Introduction to MQTT
An introduction to MQTT, one of the main communication protocols used with the Internet of Things (IoT).
Old Tutorials
Looking for the old, archived tutorials? Head on over to the
archived tutorials on the main
SparkFun site.
Please be aware that the tutorials you find there are no longer
actively maintained.