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Integrating RF LED Detector with ATtiny13

Using a given microcontroller system my question was: How can I make the simplest possible RF receiver.

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I am using the ATtiny13 on the Sparrow board. https://hackaday.io/project/4926-cheepit-sparrow-dev-boards-for-smartphones LED2 is connected to port B.3 which is ADC(3) as well. So why not connect an Antenna here. The LED should work as a detector diode. A bias voltage is needed. So I should switch on the internal pullup. Now it works fine! Don’t believe it? Watch the video. To get it sensitive enough I had to use one more trick. I switch on the pullup for a very short time. This will charge the LED which is also a little capacitor of only a few picofarads. Voltage may rise up to 2 V. Then I switch back to high Z. The LED is discharged down to about 1.5 V after some microseconds. But in the presence of an RF signal it will discharge a little lower. Several RF pulses may result in an integrated loss of LED voltage. That’s why I call it an integrating RF detector. In the end I need something like 50 mV at 100 kHz to get a clear result.

I used Basom to program the Tiny13. The source is so short I can show it here. I used an integration time of 10 µs. At the beginning I collect a reference value Ref to know the LED voltage without signal. This is used later to detect the voltage loss caused by an RF signal.

Bas and HEX files: http://www.elektronik-labor.de/AVR/Sparrow/SparrowRX.html

Cheepit upload via Sound: http://tiny.systems/categorie/cheepit/RFDetector.html

Video:

The project goes on. Leander made a simple transmitter: The ATtiny13 generates an RF signal around 300 kHz and is tuned to match the LC circuit. A second LC circuit receives the RF energy. He also built a simple data link using two coils with hardly any additional components on the Tiny13.

'ATtiny13 RF receiver

$regfile = "attiny13.dat"

$crystal = 1200000

$hwstack = 8

$swstack = 4

$framesize = 4

Config Portb = &B000000010

Dim T As Byte

Dim N As Byte

Dim D As Word

Dim Ref As Word

Dim Diff As Word

Config Adc = Single , Prescaler = Auto

Config Timer0 = Pwm , Prescale = 8 , Compare B Pwm = Clear Up

D = 0

For N = 1 To 20

Portb.3 = 1

Portb.3 = 0

Waitus 10'integration time

D = D + Getadc(3)'LED2 voltage

Next N

Ref = D / 20

Do

Portb.3 = 1

Portb.3 = 0

Waitus 10'integration time

D = Getadc(3)'LED2 voltage

If D >= Ref Then

Pwm0b = 0

Else

Diff = Ref - D

If Diff > 2 Then

Pwm0b = 128'sound and LED1

Waitms 50

End If

End If

Loop

End

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Tim McNerney wrote 10/19/2025 at 15:49 point

Your circuit reminds me of a capacitive touch sensor I built using a microcontroller and a single resistor to detect the presence or absence of a human finger near an antenna plate. I used an output pin to alternately drive the antenna high then low through the resistor each time the threshold voltage was crossed. On an input pin directly coupled to the antenna, the software measured how long it took to charge and discharge the capacitive load in order to determine if a finger was near the antenna. <p>

Here, you appear to be cleverly using a diode (LED) to rectify an AC e-field. Then with a microprocessor input pin, your software leverages the internal pull-up, FET, and gate capacitance as an oscillator, comparator, and integrator. <p>

My question is whether this is a detector of precisely modulated RF or is it simply an indiscriminate RF noise detector <i>a la</i> Marconi? In other words, can your technique being used to “tune in” to a specific modulation scheme (e.g, a sine wave frequency or DSSS), or can it only measure the <i>amplitude</i> of a broadband AC/RF field that is capacitively coupled to your antenna? Curious… Does your technique reject the DC/electrostatic component of the e-field?

  Are you sure? yes | no

b.kainka wrote 04/28/2015 at 07:38 point

The complete schematic of the Sparrow can be seen here: 

http://www.elektronik-labor.de/AVR/Soundprog6.html#v2

Actually you need only the Tony13 plus LEDs like in the schematic above. The switches are not in use. But I added a sound transducer at B1 with 1k in series to keep Vcc quiet.

  Are you sure? yes | no

CNLohr wrote 04/27/2015 at 16:30 point

Would you mind posting a schematic?

  Are you sure? yes | no

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