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Showing posts from May, 2022

Portable Image File (PIF) library for Lazarus and Delphi

Portable Image File (PIF) is an embedded-systems friendly, bitmap-like image format with ease of use and small size. This image format develops by the gfcwfzkm ( aka Pascal ) for low-end embedded systems. The file format and PIF's original implementation are available at https://github.com/gfcwfzkm/PIF-Image-Format . In this project, I developed an open-source library for the above file format to get used in Lazarus and Delphi programming languages.  This PIF library supports Windows and Linux operating systems, including Raspberry Pi OS . Sample application in Linux environment. The library is available at https://github.com/dilshan/pascal-pif-library .  The library methods are self-explanatory, and sample projects are available for Lazarus and Delphi . For example, the following code block demonstrates opening the Portable Image File and displaying it on the TImage . var pifObj: TPortableImageFile; begin pifObj := TPortableImageFile.Create('sample-image.pif'

Experimental narrowband FM receiver for 2-meter band

This project is about MC3362 and ADF4351 based modularized, 2-meter narrow band FM receiver. In this design, the receiver splits into three modules as RF preamplifier, MC3362 tuner, and ADF4351 oscillator. The RF preamplifier builts around BF900 dual-gate MOSFET. The tuner stage builts using the popular MC3362 , low power narrowband FM receiver IC. For the oscillator, we use the ADF4351 DDS RF signal generator module. The core component of this receiver is MC3362 IC. This IC was designed by Motorola and is no longer in production, but this IC is still available to purchase in many online stores . The chip we used in this receiver was purchased from a local electronic component store for LKR 75 (USD 0.2). The RF preamplifier used in this receiver extracts from the N.Ganesan's (VU3GEK) LRR200, 2-meter band FM receiver project . Prototype version of the RF preamplifier. In this prototype, the above preamplifier was built as a module using a Manhattan construction technique. Th