This TV terminal made by Vassilis Serasidis has been around quite some time and served lots of people as a great project or at least as reference to new designs. If you missed it – you just need to check it out. Well this TV terminal can completely replace any indicator that you usually use in your embedded design.

So TV terminal is capable of displaying 40 chars in 25 lines or 80×75 points in semi graphical mode. TV terminal is built around ATmega8 microcontroller that is clocked at 20MHz and it is still a trade off because originally 22MHz would be needed. Despite sending info to TV device also accepts keystrokes from standard PC keyboard and data from RS232 channel. So this makes device pretty universal which can act as a TV display controller for other embedded projects or simply accept data from PC via RS232 interface.

If you are starting with microcontrollers you are probably looking for simple guides or examples how to drive one or another peripheral with microcontroller like AVR.

In the internet you will probably find tons of information and examples how to drive standard 20 character x2 line text LCD. But hey – one more wouldn’t hurt to check you as probably in each new tutorial you can find something new and useful.

This clock has some modern and retro taste as it integrates nice old wooden box and an electronic alarm clock with Graphical LCD.

Clock is controlled by ATmega32 microcontroller. Time, date and alarm are displayed on 128×64 standard GLCD. Its backlight also has some intelligence – the value of photocell determines when to turn backlight on. Clock settings are managed via simple menu, where you can set time, date, alarm clock, backlight values and see “About this clock” info. Putting modern things in unusual “retro” looking cases makes them really attractive.

Computer has become a part of our lives. So why not to make it more attractive? Simple LED lighting in fan makes it look cool. But what if make light changing fan? CalcProgrammer1 has built a nice color changing fan with four bright LEDs mounted in corners.

The project includes the whole fan speed controller with RGB led control built around AVR microcontroller. Microcontroller monitors fan RPM, controls LED fading and communicates with PC program where in simple graphical interface you have ability to adjust fan speed, and manually select RGB intensities of each LED with sliders. This is a great base project for PC case modders.

Dev Boards are great stuff especially for newbie’s and for prototyping tasks. Internet is overcrowded with dev boards especially with mega series microcontrollers. But still you may be looking for other pin and interface layouts that seem more convenient for you.

So, this one isn’t very different comparing to other. It has all necessary parts included like ISP header, all port pins with markings, RS232 level converter. Well, one thing is a bit different – board has additional high power voltage controller – simply speaking ULN2803A that can be switched ON and OFF with 8 DIP switches. So I say this is great choice if you need to drive some high power devices directly from board. There is no other power converters included, but it can be easily powered via PC power jack – no problem to power ATmega8 with 5V and ULN2803A with 12V. No SMD parts used, that makes easy to build for everyone.