VoltJots | Electronics and IoT

Issue 59

Author

VoltJots
September 18, 2025

Welcome to the latest edition of the VoltJots newsletter, linking you to the very best electronics and IoT news, products, and projects.

Hope you enjoy! Until next week,

VoltJots

NEWS & ARTICLES

A new soft sensor from UCLA measures fatigue by tracking blink frequency through shifts in magnetic properties triggered by mechanical stress on the eyeball.

Raspberry Pi 5’s onboard PCIe connector supports adding peripherals like storage, networking, and AV cards, allowing you to take on more complex and faster projects than before. Check out this article for some neat examples.

By accurately estimating a battery’s charge and health, BMS algorithms reduce safety risks and support longer-lasting, more reliable battery-powered systems.

Despite the rise of wireless smartphones, the classic analogue landline phone remains in use, especially in business settings, showing it’s not quite a thing of the past.

Released in 1970, the Intel 1103 was the first DRAM to seriously rival magnetic core memory by offering lower cost and good enough speed. It became the top-selling semiconductor memory chip worldwide and was adopted by most major computer manufacturers within two years.

PROJECTS & TUTORIALS

By combining any BLDC motor with Infineon’s REF_36V_220W_SLFOC and a custom power/CAN adapter, you can make a compact actuator that beats stepper motors in smoothness and scalability for robotic arms.

Whether you use common cathode or anode seven segment displays, understanding their operation and using resistors is key. The 7447 IC boosts reliability when integrating these displays into your circuits.

Learn how to interface the 5MP Arducam Mega Camera to the Raspberry Pi Pico, using SPI to capture images and stream video, all made simpler by Arducam’s dedicated SDK for microcontrollers.

Combine a DFPlayer Mini and reed switch to build a low-cost, security device that plays a custom sound when a door opens. The design includes a custom PCB and acrylic case, making it compact, durable, and easy to personalise.

Watch how a breadboard computer is made from scratch using three chips for core functions and a fourth for maths operations. It can run basic code, including playing music and acting as an alarm.

By repurposing a hall sensor from a PC fan, you can build a simple device that reliably tells you which pole of a magnet is which, even for complicated magnet shapes.

Fancy building a custom domino-style clock? Built with an ESP32, a real-time clock module, and addressable LEDs, here’s a fun twist on telling time: this clock lights up the hours and minutes with glowing LED dots on domino-style blocks.

PRODUCTS

From XpressReal T3 to iWave iW-RainboW-G54S, seven new single-board computers have arrived to finish off summer 2025. The variety is huge, but every board stands out thanks to its own dedicated users. This is part 2 - part 1 link is in article.

Vishay’s VIA0050DD isolation amplifier provides 5kVrms isolation and up to 150kV/μs common-mode transient immunity, maintaining accuracy and thermal stability with a 41x gain and ±50mV input range for current sensing.

With its integrated magnetic concentrator, TI’s TMAG5134 Hall-effect switch picks up very weak magnetic fields (as low as 1mT) in-plane, providing a user-friendly alternative to magneto-resistive sensors and allowing smaller magnets to reduce system costs.

The RL78/L23 series from Renesas offers a 16-bit MCU that merges ultra-low-power operation with on-chip capacitive touch and segment LCD control, targeting smart appliances and IoT gadgets.

Designed for embedded systems, Greenliant’s NVMe M.2 PrimeDrive SSDs combine reliable storage with a good mix of speed, power efficiency, and cost, all while handling temperatures from zero to seventy degrees Celsius.

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