SwissKnife

"Swiss knife" for electronics: function generator, voltmeter, PWM generator etc. by Pico + some analog parts

When I began to have a look at the possibilities that the Pico PIO offer, I did not expect such a long and interesting journey. While working on the documentation of my experiments the idea for a small inexpensive but powerful tool arose, a sort of "Swiss knife" with many accessories you nee in the daily work. I started with the Arbitrary Waveform Generator ( see https://github.com/jean-claudeF/ArbitraryWaveformGenerator ) and added one little piece after the other.

Overview

(As work in progress, this is still evolving)

Ready to use

• Audio Function Generator ( Arbitrary Waveform Generator)
• PWM generator (frequency adjustable, with gate driver to directly drive MOSFETs)
• Quadruple voltmeter
• I2C scan gives addresses on the bus

Planned but not yet ready

• Analog output
• Tester for I2C devices (e.g. OLED etc.)
• DS18x20 temperature sensor tester / recorder
• MIDI decoder

Structure

• Hardware consisting of a Pico, R2R DA converter, amplifer for 20Vpp audio signal, buffer for AD converter
• Micropython firmware on the Pico providing functions that can be called from a serial terminal or a dedicated PC software written in Python.
• Tkinter GUI for the PC, written in Python

Hardware