Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon! Workshop Video #44: Bus Blaster v3 design overview JOIN US: Global Geek Tour of India coming soon Global Geek Tour India 2012 update HOW-TO: Access Bus Pirate v4 on-board I2C EEPROM 3D Model: Logic Shrimp v2b Eagle Parts: […]
Author Archives: DP
LED packaging overkill
Order a single surface mount LED, you expect a small “anti-static” bag with a tiny LED inside. Wrong. Here’s what Systemstech got when he ordered one. A large “anti-static” bag, with a dehumidifier bag, and a humidity sticker inside. The actual LED is the tiny black dot on the right. Got a packaging overkill stories […]
7400 Competition Reminder: Entry deadline is October 31st
Just a reminder to all potential entries that the deadline is October 31st. You now have only 2 weeks to submit your entry. Good luck! Build something that uses or abuses a logic chip and get amazing boards, tools, and other swag. The Open 7400 Logic Competition promotes awareness of the basic building blocks of […]
Open 7400 prize: $25 gift cirtificate with free world wide shipping from Numato
Numato Lab donated a $25 gift certificate with free world wide shipping to the Open 7400 Competition. Numato is an online hobbyist electronics shop based out of Banglore, India. Get your entry in and this and other cool prizes can be yours. Thank you to Numato for sponsoring the 2012 Open 7400 Logic Competition!
7400 competition entry: Hacky random number generator / cat toy
Want to make your own toy for your cat? Tom’s random number generator shows you how: I decided to make a true random number generator. In particular, I wanted a latching RNG — not merely a continuous stream of numbers, but a continuous stream which I could sample at intervals. The circuit would be made up […]
Watch out for those pesky erratas
Got burned by the errata? Yup, we have a bunch of times. This also happened to Matseng on his 6502 Single Board Computer Emulator. The datasheet (Atmel XMEGA D4) plainly said that the Port E can be used as a secondary I2C port, so with that assumption in mind he connected an I2C EEPROM to […]
OpenBeacon – An open source active RFID project
OpenBeacon is a comprehensive open source platform for active RFID applications operating in the license free 2.4GHz ISM band. The project involves base station hardware, as well as active tag hardware. OpenBeacon is based on Open Source software and a very flexible and reprogrammable lowcost Open Source RFmodule. The firmware sources and hardware schematics are […]
7400 Competition Reminder: Entry deadline is October 31st
Just a reminder to all potential entries that the deadline is October 31st. You now have only 2 weeks to submit your entry. Good luck! Build something that uses or abuses a logic chip and get amazing boards, tools, and other swag. The Open 7400 Logic Competition promotes awareness of the basic building blocks of […]
Open 7400 prize: RaspberryPI from HubCityLabs
HubCityLabs hackerspace from Moncton,Canada is the latest sponsor of the Open 7400 Competition. Up for grabs is a Raspberry PI for a Canadian entry. This and other prizes could be yours, but only if you get your entry in soon! Thank you to HubCityLabs for sponsoring the 2012 Open 7400 Logic Competition!
7400 competition entry: Data encryption and decryption system using 74xx logic gates
Nakul built a 7400 based data encryption and decryption device. It works on the cellular automaton algorithm: Encryption and decryption plays a vital role in today’s digital world. So we thought of implementing an encrypting and decrypting device using only 74xx logic chips. The encryption algorithm is based on cellular automaton. Rule 30 of the cellular […]
Nokia LCD Backpack free PCB build
Gege2b built a Nokia LCD Backpack free PCB. This board controls common Nokia LCDs like those sold by SparkFun via USB. It was intended to be produced, but problems with LCD supply shot it down. You can still get the populated board from Seeed for $9.50, but it doesn’t include the LCD. If you build […]
HOW-TO: Access Bus Pirate v4 on-board I2C EEPROM
Bus Pirate v4 has an on-board 24xx64 8Kbyte data storage chip called an EEPROM (IC3). It can be used to store various settings and preferences, but cooler, the EEPROM’s I2C interface can be accessed from within the Bus Pirate’s I2C mode. First time users can get familiar with the Bus Pirate without any added components! […]
TL-WR703N router based WiFi controlled toy robot
The TL-WR703N is probably the cheapest hackable WiFi router out there. Using the openWRT firmware you can pretty much make it do what ever you want. Madox did just that. He connected it to an expansion board which drives servos, and made his robot toy controllable via WiFi.
How LEDs are made
Ever wondered what goes into the process of making LED goodness? Here’s a how-to video from OSRAM on the basics of LED manufacturing. Via Adafruit.
7400 Competition Reminder: Entry deadline is October 31st
Just a reminder to all potential entries that the deadline is October 31st. You now have only 2 weeks to submit your entry. Good luck! Build something that uses or abuses a logic chip and get amazing boards, tools, and other swag. The Open 7400 Logic Competition promotes awareness of the basic building blocks of […]
Workshop Update for October 16th, 2012
Bought new batteries for the camera. Lots of India planning and correspondence – please confirm if you are joining. Talked with DP friend Tully (from Shenzhen Geek Tour video) about our upcoming trip to Shenzhen. We are designing a few more variations of a TFT breakout board, some with only 5v-3.3v level translators, some with […]
7400 competition entry: 4-bit SAR analog to digital converter
Marco entered a 4-bit SAR ADC made from discrete logic chips 74xx & 40xx series for the Open 7400 Logic Competition. The SAR (Successive approximations) works by comparing the analog value to be converted with a generated value with a method similar to the mathematical bisection method. More precisely, it starts comparing, by a simple difference, the input […]
Crayola ColorStudio HD Pen hack
Hack a Crayola ColorStudio HD Pen and load it up with your own Arduino sketch. The pen uses a PIC microcontroller to pulse a reed relay which is picked up by the capacitive screen on the tablet. An app on tablet decodes the pulses, and changes the color of the paint brush. Rob pried it […]
Eagle Parts: 74XX245 buffer footprint, because Murphy always strikes twice
This part from our Eagle library is a favorite. We use the 74xx245 buffer as a 5v to 3.3V level translator in many of our projects. Many of those projects went through a few revisions, ’cause we keep getting the directional control pin wrong. Eventually we branded a legend for the “DIR” pin directly on […]
#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 […]