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 […]
Author Archives: DP
App note: Techniques for robust touch sensing design
Here’s an app note from Microchip describing the best design practices when developing capacitive touch applications in noisy environments: This application note will begin by defining the problems caused by noise, and explain how that noise typically affects systems. Hardware guidelines will then be provided to help maximize the natural signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the application. […]
App note: RF Layout with Microstrip
Here’s an application note from Atmel on microstrip layout techniques to get optimal RF performance from wireless ICs (PDF!) : Poor layout can seriously degrade wireless performance. This application note outlines practical microstrip layout techniques to connect wireless microcontrollers with baluns and antennas. Unbalanced and balanced (differential) microstrip techniques are discussed for 4-layer PCBs using […]
Technology Changes: From a portable power point of view
Here’s an app note from Maxim – Technology Changes: From a portable power point of view Portable power presents a range of design challenges. While major changes such as new battery technologies make headlines, the minor, almost negligible shifts are arguably more fascinating. The effects of these shifts is often non-linear µ a small change […]
Old display reverse engineered to work with a Raspberry Pi
Old Display Reverse Engineered to work with a Raspberry Pi: Dimitri, Frank, Kevin and Robin from Eectronique have sent in some details of a project that they have been working on. They had an old early 90′s LED matrix sign and wanted to make it work with a Raspberry Pi. The circuit layout is what […]
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. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week: Free PCB Sunday. The classic. Every week, get […]
Week in (p)review May 10, 2013
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. Bus Pirate console Bus Pirate to the rescue Workshop Update for May 9th, 2013 Workshop Update for May 7th, 2013 Workshop Update for May 6th, 2013 Bus Pirate and flashrom save another laptop Coming up: Free PCBs via Facebook […]
Mossmann: HackRF giveaway
Michael Ossmann is giving away HackRF. For more details and to register visit mossmann’s blog: Jawbreaker is the HackRF beta design, and I’m getting ready to ship beta units to as many people as possible. It is a USB-powered SDR peripheral that can transmit or receive virtually any radio signal from 30 MHz to 6 […]
Workshop Update for May 9th, 2013
We continue working on part documentation. Here is a image of our 2D technical drawings of IDC connectors.
Spark Core: Wi-Fi for everything (Arduino compatible)
Spark Core: Wi-Fi for Everything (Arduino Compatible) The Spark Core is an Arduino-compatible, Wi-Fi enabled, cloud-powered development platform that makes creating internet-connected hardware a breeze. This little board packs a punch: with a 72 MHz ARM Cortex M3, the best Wi-Fi module on the market, wireless programming, and lots of pin outs and peripherals, there’s […]
DIY Daft Punk helmet using a Raspberry Pi
Ryan Longo and Michu worked together to make this cool DIY Daft Punk helmet with Raspberry Pi – software by Michu, the idea and hardware by Ryan Longo: So I wrote a Netty based Java application using Pi4J which does exactly this. The UDP2I2C source is published on GitHub My application receive UDP data in the […]
miniSpartan6, another Spartan 6 Kit
The Hardwarer has designed and built this open source FPGA starter kit -miniSpartan6, it is based on Papilio Pro and XuLA2: It is designed around Spartan 6 chip from Xilinx and it has on board JTAG programmer based on FT2232D from FTDI. The miniSpartan6 is built to combine the advantages of both Papilio Pro and XuLA2. It […]
Bus Pirate to the rescue!
Bus Pirate to the rescue once again! Bertho writes: I’ve been working on a small flipdot controller which is supposed to talk serial, SPI and I2C all at the same time. Making serial to work is easy, but both SPI and I2C require properly formatted input streams to test with and are a bit more […]
Double sided PCB etching using a laser cutter
This video by Rich Olson demonstrates his method for creating 2-layer PCBs using his laser cutter and chemical etching. Via Hacked Gadgets.
TL-WR703N, TL-WR720N & TL-MR3020 images + secret sauce
Madox uploaded several firmware images for the TL-WR703N, TL-WR720N & TL-MR3020, get them from the Madox Google Code page: Based on OpenWRT r36503, it has the new 3.8.10 kernel as well as the new LuCi theme. Due to the slowly expanding size of the kernel and the packages, I had to drop 3G out from […]
Tinkerer’s tricorder
Nickjohnson wrote previously about his Loki PSoC based development board. Now he’s experimenting with the idea of building an ESR meter: I’ve been experimenting with different measurement options using the Loki as a test platform. I’m just about ready to start speccing out and designing a PCB soon, and I’ve got a nice case lined […]
Resurrecting a WRT54G router with a launchpad
Lalalandrus over at the 430h forum shares his experience debricking a WRT54G router with a MSP430 Launchpad: I ported the code to a MSP430. Changing pinouts should be relatively straight forward in the DEFINES. . The router is fixed but took literally days, backing up the 128k CFE took three days even though I didnt need it. Wrtiting is a […]
Workshop Update for May 7th, 2013
We continue working on the part documentation. The picture above is pre-crimped ribbon cable.
uFusion – AHRS/IMU module
uFusion – AHRS/IMU module on Indiegogo: uFusion is an easy configurable 9DoF AHRS system that mix data coming from 3 axes accelerometer, 3 axes gyroscope, 3 axes magnetometer to extract Attitude and Heading References. It’s studied to simplify the integration in your project. In fact, uFusion can be soldered on your own PCB or can […]
Turning on/off lights by whistling (Cortex M4 @ 80FFTs/sec)
Limpkin informs us that he recently finished work on his open source project: Turning on/off lights by whistling Basically, it is an ARM Cortex M4 running 80FFTs per second to detect a whistling sequence. The project is obviously open hardware/source Via the forum. Check out the video after the break.