Homemade soldering flux has been a hot topic in the forum. Some people prefer it to most commercial stuff. Dpropicweb consolidated the recipes, tips, and discussion into a Flux, Flux, Flux wiki page.
Monthly Archives: April 2012
The Descriptive Camera
Matt Richardson’s Descriptive Camera sends pictures to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk where a worker writes a description of the scene: The Descriptive Camera works a lot like a regular camera—point it at subject and press the shutter button to capture the scene. However, instead of producing an image, this prototype outputs a text description of the […]
Receiving Oregon Scientific sensors with RTL-SDR
Kevin Mehall got his RTL-SDR dongle and wasted no time in developing a decoder using GNU Radio for the 433MHz transmissions of Oregon Scientific remote temperature sensors (v1 protocol). These devices transmit on 433.9 MHz sending data packets containing the temperature data every 30 seconds. The transmitter uses On-off keying and the 32 data bits […]
Extra giveaway: Tweezers, solder paste, and kapton tape
Here’s some leftovers from our Shenzhen shopping spree. When the all the giveaways were mailed we still had an extra pair of tweezers, solder paste, and kapton tape. It’s all up for grabs. Leave a comment below.
30x Bus Pirate v4 build workshop
Sdixon organized a group build of Bus Pirate v4 PCBs: Yesterday we held our group build and it was a great success. About 25 people built a total of around 30 Bus Pirate V4c. All but one of them worked! The one that didn’t work resisted some pretty determined troubleshooting and rework so we are […]
Akiba’s video tour of Akihabara electronic shops
From the comments on our earlier Akihibara Electric Town tour post: Tokyo Hackerspace has a video tour of most shops. Some have a website, some don’t and if they have, it’s in Japanese. But here is a spoiler Thanks Tayken! Via the comments.
O’Reilly video: Intro to Gestural Interfaces with the Microsoft Kinect
This webcast by Greg Borenstein presented by O’Reilly offers a solid introduction to building your own applications with the Microsoft Kinect. Beginners will find a wealth of information about the Kinect’s theory of operation and how to use the data it generates to work with Arduino, Processing and other frameworks. The importance of the calibration […]
Another fantastic Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB from the drawer!
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week we have a guest […]
App note: The effect of power supply noise on oscillator phase noise
TI on limiting phase noise from oscillators [PDF!]: This report provides the description of local oscillator (LO) phase noise degradation due to supply noise. Brief theoretical information supported by experiments carried out to demonstrate this degradation is discussed. The importance of selecting appropriate low-noise LDO (low-dropout) linear regulators is discussed.
App note: Driving capacitive loads with op amps
How to drive capacitive loads with op amps. Operational amplifiers that drive large capacitive loads can have problems like oscillation and peaking. This article describes how to anticipate and limit theses problems: Other problems include: reduced bandwidth, lower output slew rate, and higher power consumption. This application note explains why these problems occur, how to […]
What do digital radio modes sound like?
App note: Calculating the error budget in precision DACs
How to chose a voltage reference and digital to analog converter chips to get the precision and stability you need: This application note focuses on Maxim’s 3-terminal voltage references and precision DACs. To design a system, one must first understand how the parts are specified and then how their performance characteristics interact. Voltage references and […]
Machined acrylic case for the Bus Pirate
Vibrolax machined a case for his Bus Pirate: It was made from a scrap piece of 0.125″ acrylic sheet. My co-worker Arpad gets credit for the smooth edges, as he machined it on a Bridgeport mill. The 4-40 standoffs provides clearance between the top sheet and the Bus Pirate. A single washer provides clearance between […]
Olinuxino 1.2 GHz single board computer
Development board maker Olimex is brewing up a single board computer, the Olinuxino. The latest revision uses an 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 based Allwinner A13 SoC, which by the way, comes in a very reasonable 176pin TQFP package. For reals. The new board will feature: A13 Cortex A8 processor at 1000Mhz, 3D Mali400 512 […]
Super Boost 3.6A USB charger based on LM2700
Scrawny 500mA USB charger insufficient for your hunger for power? Try this 3.6 amp USB charger based on the LM2700 boost switch-mode IC. This design is inspired by the Minty Boost but it fixes some of the issues that I had with it. The Minty Boost is limited to 600mA due to the LT1302 chip. […]
Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters
Every Friday we give away some extra PCBs via Facebook. This post was announced on Facebook, and on Monday we’ll send coupon codes to two random commenters. More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. This week we have a guest PCB, Digital Picture Frame with clock and thermometer (Erick Aubin). Use […]
Dongle Shootout: Funcube vs RTL SDR
Kanal von MegaOscarVideos from Germany presents a two-part video comparision of the Funcube dongle and a RTL-SDR DVB-T dongle, in this case a Hama Nano version. The two devices are connected to the same antenna and using identical test systems from a geostationary INMARSAT satellite to compare received signal to noise ratios (SNR).
Week in (p)review April 27, 2012
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. WORKSHOP VIDEO: Part Ninja v1 testing and overview 3D Model: PIC18F2550 Breakout Board HOW-TO: Learn PIC serial UART with your Bus Pirate Control your Bus Pirate with an Android Tablet Machined Bus Pirate v3 case and Bus Pirate […]
XC9572XL CPLD breakout free PCB build
Schazamp built a free XC9572XL CPLD breakout board. CPLDs are programmable logic gate arrays that allow you to build custom logic devices simply by programing them. If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll send you a coupon code for the […]
Bus Pirate case from a mint tin
Kaeso made a Bus Pirate case from a mint tin. The Bus Pirate is a hacking multi-tool that can talk to many common electronic chips. See our case video from a few weeks ago, and even more awesome DIY cases from Bus Pirate fans. Get the Bus Pirate DIY edition PCB from the PCB drawer for […]