Greeeg made a small Bus Pirate clone:
I’ve been quite happy with my sparkfun Bus Pirate. After seeing this project I decided I would attempt to redesign the bus pirate to be as small as possible, whilst still maintaining full functionality.
My final design turned out to be about %50 smaller than the sparkfun version. Some alterations were needed, these involved replacing the FTDI IC with a QFN package PIC18F14k50. The Main PIC is also using a QFN version. This could be made smaller by using combined LEDs (RGB / RG /etc), resistor arrays, smaller header, micro usb socket. I’m more than happy to provide the eagle/gerber files if anyone really wants them, but half the fun was making the layout.
If anyone has a smaller design I’d love to see it.
Via the forum.
Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
I don’t have a smaller design but can think of one.
Put some on the components on the bottom side. However, wondering if it can be done with a two layer PCB.
Great job by the way!
:P
Bus pirate pirated!!! (cloned)
:P
Excellent!
It’s always impressive to see the PCB no wider than the most prominent connector – in this case the header.
I would suggest using one PIC instead of two, but I guess that the USB function might slow down the Bus Pirate operations.
Please do post the Eagle files to the forum thread.
Nice job with the QFN chips!
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=2423
Mine is also smaller than the bus pirate from sparkfun, even though it has breakout for the FT232 chip.
Keep in mind, that was the first PCB I ever soldered together, as well as the first PCB I made.
Also, yes, RGB leds are a godsend, they are much smaller than having three separate leds, though you may need higher voltage for the blue leds, which means you need a transistor or tiny fet, which in turn causes the RGB led part to be even larger. :(