Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. PCB drawer restock – Bus Pirate v3.8 Bus Pirate probe cable prototypes and giveaway Bus Pirate cable professionally printed shrink tubes Bus Pirate cable and L-Mark LK-320P heat shrink printer XC2C64A CPLD development board back in stock Free […]
Author Archives: DP
Open source PID controller (DIY Arduino shield)
Tom posted his Arduino PID controller shield in the project log forum: Program a temperature profile to mash beer or reflow solder. Here’s how. This full featured open source PID controller uses a DIY stripboard shield for Arduino Uno and compatible boards. Firmware based on osPID massively revamped and extended, blood was sweated over new auto […]
Digital clock using 7 segment display controlled using TV remote
Zxlee wrote a post on his blog detailing his digital clock on 7 segment controlled with TV remote: When the Arduino first power up, it will display time information on 7 segment displays. Besides that, the LCD will display the time, date, temperature and day of week information. Basically, this is the main part of the program. The program […]
XC2C64A CPLD development board back in stock
CoolRunner-II XC2C64A CPLD development boards 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 CoolRunner-II development board for $15 and XC9572XL dev-board for $15.
Free PCB build – PICkit3 clone on QFP prototyping board
Hlipka writes: I got the 0.8+0.5mm xQFP protoboard from the Free PCB drawer. Since I wanted to get a PICkit3 for a while, this looked like a perfect fit. So I looked up the schematics, ordered what I needed, and started work. It took longer than expected, and in the end I had just one […]
Variable RF signal sampler
Brian Dorey posted an article describing how he built his variable RF signal sampler: It isn’t safe to connect the output of a radio directly into a frequency counter or oscilloscope due to the high voltages and currents on the transmitter and so we needed a way to sample part of the transmitted signal while dumping the […]
Sniffing and decoding NRF24L01+ and bluetooth LE packets for under $30
Omri writes: In this long post I am going to describe my journey to sniff and decode popular digital wireless protocols off the air for very cheap. So cheap practicality anyone can obtain the equipment quickly. I was able to decode NRF24L01+ and Bluetooth Low Energy protocols using RTL-SDR. As far as I can see, […]
RumbleRail, a standalone and modular Floppy disk jukebox
Watch and enjoy this RumbleRail project a Floppy disk jukebox by Kiu: The overall setup is completly modular. Each floppy is connected to its own floppy driver (rrfdc), which in turn speaks I²C with the main board (rrcmd). On power-on the main board auto-discovers the connected floppies and adjusts the software to utilize the available drives. In theory […]
Bus Pirate cable professionally printed shrink tubes
Professionally printed shrink tubes arrived for the Bus Pirate probe cable prototype we discussed yesterday. 110 each of 10 labels cost 180RMB ($30). These are about about 5x more expensive than printing them ourselves on the L-Mark (ribbon+tube cost). The the print quality is more consistent than ours and the font nicer, but when it’s […]
Car computer build
ptodorov over at the EEVblog forum shared his experience building a carputer: For the last 5-6 months everything ran fairly smoothly with a few glitches and bugs. But a few weeks ago all hell broke loose while I was driving. Suddenly left and right blinkers started flashing, the headlights started blinking and doors kept locking and unlocking. […]
Cypress PSoC4 Pioneer kit review
Tayken wrote up a review of Cypress PSoC4 Pioneer kit: I mostly work with microcontrollers and occasionally FPGAs. I already had a PSoC3 board that a Japanese magazine was giving so I had a pretty good idea about what PSoC is. For those of you who are new to the term, PSoC stands for Programmable System-on-Chip, it […]
#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 […]
Xilinx programmer cable labels
In reply for our earlier post about printing heat shrink cable labels, TomKeddie posted a picture of this Xilinx cable in the forum: Just for reference, this is what Xilinx does. I guess the real question is when are you looking at the labels? Mostly during hookup, once they’re in place do you read them? For […]
Bus Pirate cable and L-Mark LK-320P heat shrink printer
We’ve been on a multiyear quest to make a durable, affordable, usable probe cable for the Bus Pirate. The one currently sold by Seeed is inexpensive (good) but I’ve never been a fan of the probe hooks used. I typically use male:female, or female:female individual probe wires sold in bundles at Seeed, Adafruit, etc. With […]
PCB drawer restock: Bus Pirate v3.8
To test a PCB supplier we ordered 100 Bus Pirate v3.8 boards to put in the free PCB drawer. The total cost for 100 PCBs, two sided with red solder mask and 100% E-test was 190RMB (~$30). v3.8 is intended for the Bus Pirate education kit, and includes some fixes to long standing issues like […]
How to use GPIBUSB adapter
A followup to the GPIB USB Adapter. Steven demonstrates how to use his adapter in two different software environments the Ubuntu 13.10 + Python + InstrumentKit and the Win7 + Terminite. Via the forum.
Oscillator controller for 8bit PIC microcontrollers
Dilshan Jayakody writes: This is oscillator controller for 8bit PIC microcontrollers which is specifically design to debug MCUs and related circuits by without using ICD unit. This unit consists with low speed oscillator and cycle counter with automatic hold. In current version, oscillator is capable to run in 2 frequency modes and it can count […]
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: USB current meter using the SPI Interface
Here’s a Multi-Protocol Synchronous Serial Engine (MPSSE) implementation from FTDI. This application note gives an example of using the Multi-Protocol Synchronous Serial Engine (MPSSE) on the FT232H device. It uses D2xx commands to configure the MPSSE to interface with two Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs) using the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). It is controlled by […]
App note: USB hardware design guidelines for FTDI ICs
Check out hardware design guidelines from FTDI when using their ICs. While use of FTDI ICs makes USB easy to implement, care must be taken during the hardware design phase of a project to ensure certain practices are followed. This application note provides design guidelines for several common questions that have been asked of the […]