faq

What sort of computer will I need to use the CEE?

Pixelpulse runs in Google Chrome on operating systems including Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and OSX. We recommend having a 1.6GHz-or-better processor and at least 1GB of RAM.

Do I need to be a programmer/hacker/computer genius to use this?

Certainly not! Pixelpulse has been designed from the ground up to make exploring the world through the CEE simple, intuitive, and visual.

How does the CEE work?

The CEE makes extensive use of opamps. They're magic. We'll be posting a longer explanation of the CEE's inner workings as one of our first blog posts!

Can I use the CEE for X? Will it do Y?

We hope so, but at this time, the CEE is limited by the power available through your USB port. Join and email our Google Group and we'll be able to answer you directly.

What does "Open Source Hardware" mean?

All of our schematics, board layouts, code, and associated designs will be licensed such that individuals can produce, remix, and reuse our work, provided they attribute the original work to Nonolith Labs and license their work under the same license. You can improve our design, make as many as you want, and sell them as long as you share your changes under the same license and don't call them CEEs.

Can this hurt me or my computer?

The voltage and currents the CEE is able to source are very safe. This is a tool for exploration, not an industrial controller. We've taken careful considerations along our design process to make sure that the CEE will stand up to the abuse makers and students will reasonably throw at it. When attaching external power sources to the CEE, you must exercise some caution, but the CEE should tolerate anything you could easily do by accident.

Isn't this just a USB sound-card with some transistors?

Nope! The CEE is a custom-built tool with beefy, precise, accurate, and fast rail-to-rail opamps, a high-speed microcontroller, and awesome analog/digital/analog converters.

Sound cards aren't designed for this sort of work. They're usually AC coupled (meaning they can't measure voltages that don't change faster than 20Hz), they usually have proprietary built in filters and crossovers (meaning they do weird things to frequencies that we can't easily undo), and they're low power (meaning they can't directly control motors, heaters, and more). Additionally, soundcards can only source/measure voltage, not current.

I want to know more!

Awesome! Check out our GitHub account. It probably has all the gory little details your heart desires.

You can also join and email our Google Group and we'll be able to answer you directly.