Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. New Bus Pirate v3 probe cable with labels and male pins XC9572XL CPLD development board , Bus Pirate v4 and USB Infrared Toy v2 are back in stock RTCC shield kit with a prototype PCB from Dirty PCB’s Coming up: Free PCBs […]
Author Archives: DP
Hacker Camp Shenzhen Video: Advanced soldering demo at Hacker Camp Shenzhen
By ian QFN, BGA, plastic connectors, other crazy advanced removal and replacement of surface mount components by a teacher at a Lande Mobile Repair School in Shenzhen China. Part of Hacker Camp Shenzhen 2014. Presentations, pictures, and overview here. Next week we’ll have step by step instructions for reballing BGA chips. Get your BGA reballng […]
New Bus Pirate v3 probe cable with labels and male pins
Seeed Studio has a new Bus Pirate v3 probe cable in stock. This cable was prototyped with help from the community using our L-Mark shrink tube printer. Review and posts here. Easily connect to chips with this probe cable for Bus Pirate v3.x (all versions). Each wire has a convenient male pin header for easily […]
XC9572XL CPLD development board back in stock
XC9572XL CPLD development board are back in stock at Seeed Studio. CPLDs are programmable logic gate arrays which allow you to build custom logic devices simply by programing them. Get the XC9572XL dev-board for $15 and CoolRunner-II development board for $15.
Bruce in a box augmented reality project
Julie Wang from Cornell University developed a Bruce in a box augmented reality project for her ECE 5760 final project: My system makes use of a variety of digital signal processing and computer vision techniques, resulting in a robust and reliable system. The hardware I utilized was the DE2-115 board by Altera, a Video Camera, and a VGA […]
Taco Crawl 2014 Thursday before Maker Faire
Every year before Maker Faire we spend a day in San Francisco to visit the Noisebridge hackerspace, Instructables, and other open hardware/DIY/hacker friendly people. Noisebridge is located in a neighborhood called the Mission District, and it has dozens of delicious Mexican taco shops called taquerias. We try to eat a carne asada taco at every […]
WS2812 level translator
Bogdan of Electro Bob wrote an article on using the WS2812 level translator: Although the data sheet states that you would need at least 3.5V for them to recognize as HIGH level(70% of 5V), many seem to have no problem being driven from a 3.3V micro. With the signal regeneration that each does, it is only […]
USB Infrared Toy v2 back in stock
USB Infrared Toy v2 is back in stock at Seeed Studio. You can use it as a remote control with your computer, view infrared signals on a logic analyzer, capture and replay remote control buttons. You can get IR Toy v2 for $22.05, including world wide shipping.
RFID access control for garage door
An Arduino-based RFID access control to open garage door using RFID by Jason Hamilton: This is my Arduino-based project that allows you to use RFID for access control to open a door. The door can be anything that can be controlled by a relay. In my case it will be a garage door opener. This is the […]
Lens flare creating filter, with 3D printed parts
Jan Henrik wrote this Instructable detailing the build of his DIY lens flare creating filter, with 3D printed parts: In this project, I want to show you how you can build yourself a “Lens-Flare-Filter” for your DSLR or digital camera! With the filter, you can easily create a cinematic look for your pictures and videos without spending much money […]
eBay photoswitch teardown
Alan Parekh of Hacked Gadgets writes: I spotted this photoswitch on eBay and had to take a look at the guts (search photoswitch if the link doesn’t work since eBay links go stale after a short time). I now see that the same unit is sold in multiple variations which are 24V and 220V. Not sure […]
RTCC shield kit with a prototype PCB from Dirty PCB’s
@Velleman_RnD tweeted, “RTCC shield kit. Proto pcb made by the good people from Dirty PCB’s”
#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs
Every Tuesday we give away two coupons for the free PCB drawer via Twitter. This post was announced on Twitter, and in 24 hours we’ll send coupon codes to two random retweeters. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week: Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch […]
Bus Pirate v4 back in stock
Bus Pirate v4 is back in stock at Seeed Studio. The Bus Pirate is an open source hacker multi-tool that talks to electronic stuff. It’s got a bunch of features an intrepid hacker might need to prototype their next project. You can get a Bus Pirate v4 for $40, including worldwide shipping.
HOW-TO: Visit Bay Area Maker Faire
We are off to the Bay Area Maker Faire, and we’d like to share some of the tips we picked up on our previous visit there. Below are our tips for both visitors, and participants. If you are in the area be sure to drop by.
Hacker Camp Shenzhen: Yet another video from Gary Fletcher
Gary Fletcher shared this Shenzhen trip video he made: So anyway, here is a snippet of our 10 days in China/Hong Kong in what I am calling a Blogamentory (my perspective), but there is some more professional stuff from the guys on their own site you’ll dig into here Thanks again guys and for those of you […]
An Arduino library for MCP3903 A/D converter
Kerry Wong writes: MCP3903 is a six channel Delta-Sigma A/D converter. It features six synchronous sampling differential channels which can be programmed to sample between 16 bit and 24 bit accuracy, the gain for each channel can also be programmatically set from 1 up to 32. It also has an internal low tempco (5ppm/°C) voltage […]
A Silverlink clone to rescue pre-USB calculators
Geekboy1011 over at the Cemetech forum has been working on a Silverlink clone software for the Arduino Leonardo (ATmega32U4) microcontroller development board: Texas Instruments’ Silverlink is a product to connect calculators without USB ports (namely everything except the TI-84 Plus series and the TI-89 Titanium) to computers’ USB ports to transfer files, screenshots, and operating systems.
Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB
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 two random commenters will […]
App note: Understanding and Minimizing Ground Bounce
Another old app note from Fairchild on Ground Bounce issues. Ground bounce has been a concern to some system designers for many years. Its effects can be found in most bipolar and CMOS logic families. However, ground bounce has recently become a major issue. Although new advanced CMOS logic families have edge rates comparable to […]