Contents

Colophon
Who's who at Elektor magazine.

The PCB Prototyper
Spreads its Wings

News & New Products
A monthly roundup of all the latest in electronics land.

mbed Has Landed!
Simon Ford's monthly column on the Elektor/NXPmbed challenge

Economical Energy Harvesting
Presenting several designs that enable circuits to be powered from solar energy.

Thin FAT
An overview of open source FAT file system libraries for embedded applications.

Nixie Tube Thermometer
Thisiswhatyou get from combining a modern microcontroller with a truly classic display.

Flight Data Recorder
A speed and velocity recorderfor model airplanes, based on ourATMi8 microcontroller module.

Energy Saving Tips
Seventeen ways, some tongue in cheek, to reduce your energy bill and decrease your personal carbon footprint.

AII-Soft-555
Two new software utilities allow an ATtiny microcontroller to act like the celebrated 555 timer, with a few features added!

E-Labs Inside: Under Scrutiny: The Xmega Board
A look at Mikroelektronika's latest development system for the Xmega processor.

E-Labs Inside: Spotted at Electronica 2010
Some remarkable products seen last November at the world's leading exhibition on state of the art electronics.

E-Labs Inside: Here Comes the Bus!
We call on our readers to assist with the development of the Elektor Bus.

Low-cost Headphone Amplifier
Guess what, it's straightforward, sounds good and consists of dead standard parts only.

Free Energy
Is it truly possible to generate free energy, or are we deceiving ourselves and others?

Wireless ECG
In this project Zigbee modules are used to build a system for wireless monitoring of cardiac signals.

Groping in the Dark
Here we try to find out if a webcam is any good forconverting into a night vision camera.

Design Tips: Opamp versus Comparator
These devices look very similar with their + and - labels atcertain pins, but ....

Support Board for Arduino Nano
In this article, we're proposing a motherboard that was originally designed fora robotics application, butwhich can very well be used for other jobs too.

Three out of Two Ain't Bad
Adding a tacho signal to a two-wire fan as used in PCs.

Notch Filters for Intermediate Frequencies
Two simplefilters.oneRCandone LC, for suppressing noise in communication receivers.

Hexadoku
Our monthly puzzle with an electronics touch.

Retronics: Tandberg Model 5 & Stereo Record Amplifier (ca. 1959)
Regular feature on electronics 'odd & ancient'. Series Editor: Jan Buiting

Coming Attractions
Next month in Elektor magazine.