Johannes made a small Bus Pirate clone:
Goal was to have the backside clear of anything (hence pure SMT) and make it as small as possible (the place I got the PIC from unfortunately just had the “freakingly” huge SOIC). Plus mess around with negative silk screen :).
My “Bus Pirate Cute” measures about 50x20mm (without the “pirate monkey tab” I added for fun) thus fits the smallest Itead/Seeed Proto PCB. Programming of the initial boot loader was done with the software provided by Fezoj
Unfortunately, I for some reason had the SOIC version of the 4066 in my mind and it didn’t occur to me that I needed TSSOP; but only until I held the PCBs in my hands. Stupid mistake, I know. Sadly, this version is not available at resellers I usually get my stuff from. So for now: no pullups (major pain though). Besides that everything seems to work beautifully and except for the obvious pullup related stuff, self test passes.
I also designed an isolator to be placed on top of the connector with the ADUM1401 (3 lines out, one in). Mainly for isolated UART. I haven’t tested it extensively yet but it seems to work.
Here are some pictures:
I used two old, to be disassembled PCBs for initial programming. One had an AtMega8, the other an MCP2200 (perfect fit). Looks absolutely horrible but got it working after a while.
Bus Pirate powered up plus Bus Isolator.
Back side of the Bus Isolator. Including an Osram Firefly LED. I love and hate these things at the same time.
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Very nice silk screen! Everything is so well labeled!
The osram leds look rather good, but the pictures don’t do it justice I presume. Why the love hate relation ship with them?
Loved it! :D
it is f*ckng ok… hehe
the use of bad language is to be deplored.
It shows a lack of Education, and judgement
No, you are probably thinking about capitalization and punctuation.
LOL! let ’em be, this is the internet after all.
This is great! I want one like it :-)
just in case, I am commenting on the pcb words.
F……. is not an adjective
LOL mike…chill out. Lack of education? Johannes is smart enough to build an improved bus pirate. I don’t think his (“lack of”) education should be called into question because he put the fuckbomb on his silkscreen. I love this project even more because of it!
Personally, I consider the F word (I don’t know if we are breaking any rules by saying it) to add some humor to a board like this. It shows that the person who created it can handle a joke or two, as well as make some himself.
Thanks for featuring my build, Ian :). 4066 is coming soon, too.
I did add a comment yesterday but somehow WordPress sucked it up or it went to moderation and has never been released. So another try.
@hack8or: Osram Fireflies are 0402 size and seem to be primarily used for lighting keys etc. in mobile equipment. I am okay with soldering resistors or caps the same size but these IMO are a lot more difficult to handle. Moreover, in the beginning I did drop them on the floor quite often and you need tond of luck finding them. These things are 0.3mm in height (basically a medium sized pcb trace!). What I love about them is that they are extremely tiny and almost invisible on the board. Yet they are insanely bright and light up your whole PCB. Good for electronics, that are to look nice. If anyone wants to give them a try: order some extra!
@mike:
I do lack judgement and education? Wow! Seriously, you judge people/me on random stuff I have had printed on the backside of a PCB?
I created this build purely for myself and I have absolutely no plans of redistributing it (ok, may be give away one but that’s it). Yet I wanted it to stand out (optically) from the regular BP and seeing a lot of empty space on the back I just added something. I guess you’ve spent more time on lamenting on the f-word use than I spent on preparing the silk screen layer (which took s.th. like 15 minutes).
Oh well. saw this discussion coming after I got Ian’s mail saying it’s gonna be published… On the other hand: my build got some attention :). Which is good…
And BTW: it should be quite obvious that the word is an adjective in this sentence (no, I am not an English native speaker myself). Look up its usage on online dictionaries.
@hak8or+dext0rb:
Thanks, guys :). Exactly: There’s no need taking everything seriously when it’s obviously not meant to be.
Nice work.
That SOIC package does take up alot of space. Have you seen the one I did awhile ago? I got it down to 26mmx20mm single sided components.
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3007&p=29411
I really like the negative silkscreen. :D
Yes, I have seen it a while back. Love it. I would have preferred getting the TSSOP or leadless version but I didn’t want to order the PIC separately. You used the QFN versions extensively and have vias in the solder pads (does Seeed/Itead allow that? Yours looks like Dorkbot). Somewhat annoying getting these on board but certainly doable (have done so in the past).
Regarding the silk screen: it’s actually relatively messed up because of the not-so good quality of the black solder mask. Plus they extended the gap between pads and the mask. If anyone wants to use inverted prints, I suggest bigger text with an increased ratio. On Itead boards, I’ve received very good silk screen prints on 1.2mm PCB with good-old green solder mask (1.6mm standard was worse). Oh, well: it’s just cosmetic stuff anyway ;).