We continue to prep for the New York Global Geek Tour. We’re trying to get Alpha One Labs on the geek tour. Acknowledgements went out to everyone who asked about the geek and food crawl. If you plan to come, let us know soon to get the full list, or watch our Twitter feed for […]
Author Archives: DP
Panelize 4 DP6037 standard PCBs on a single cheap PCB order
Schazamp is making a community order of Bus Pirate v4 Sick of Beige PCBs. He decided to use Seeed Studio’ss cheap PCB service and hack together 4 Bus Pirates on one 10x10cm PCB. He hit a little snag with combining the gerbers, but Ernie helped him out. Since the Bus Pirate uses our DP6037 standard PCB […]
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 a every week: Free PCB Sunday. The classic. Every week, […]
Week in (p)review September 21, 2012
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. WORKSHOP VIDEO #40: Nixie tube and logic analyzer demo for Maker Faire 3D Model: Bus Blaster v3 in a Sick of Beige v1 case Eagle Parts: Our Eagle library converted to KiCad NEXT WEEK: New York Global Geek […]
Microchip’s PIC18F2/4550 replacements are available for sampling
In July we mentioned that Microchip was getting ready to release replacements for the famous PIC18F2550 and PIC18F4550 microcontrollers, and now they are available for sampling. The PIC18F2/45K50 family is pin to pin comparable with the older series, and are also capable of running at 5V. The price has gone down considerably, as the new […]
Workshop Update for September 20th, 2012
Filmed today’s Workshop Video, and continued to prepare for the Global Geek Tour New York. Designed the Sick of Biege case for the Bus Pirate v4c and sent the design files to Seeed Studio’s cheapie laser cutting service. Once we test out this design it should go into production. We also found some interesting app […]
Designing Eagle footprints from mechanical drawings
Adafruit shows how to accurately design footprints in Eagle. The process imports the mechanical drawing into Eagle, and the footprint is traced over this template. It’s best used for mechanical parts – connectors, buttons, jacks, etc – that have complicated footprint designs. You can also check out our guide to building simple footprints in Eagle, […]
Easy Pulse heart rate sensor
Easy Pulse is a heart rate monitor using an IR LED and a light detector: Easy Pulse provides a reflective IR sensor with necessary instrumentation circuit to illustrate the principle of photoplethysmography as a noninvasive technique for measuring heart rate. In order for this sensor to work, the fingertip should be placed gently over the […]
Surface mount package cheat sheets
NXP released these posters with images of all the SMD packages they use. It could be an easy way for you to quickly see how an unfamiliar package looks. Clicking on the package in the PDF document to bring up a page with mechanical design files. There are two posters – one for more common […]
Workshop Update for September 19th, 2012
We’re in high gear preparing for the New York Global Geek Tour. We continue soldering projects for display at Maker Faire New York. We’re finalizing the Open Hardware Summit presentation. Cleaning up the workshop for tomorrow’s video. In hardware design we played around calculating the sense and load resistor values for the INA138 current […]
Open 7400 prize: $100 gift voucher from ProtoStack
Protostack donated a $100 gift voucher to the Open 7400 Competition. Get your entry in and this and other cool hardware can be yours. Protostack is an online hobby electronics store with boards, microcontrollers, and other hardware needed to get you started with electronics projects. The ATmega328 Development Kit contains everything you need for a […]
Through-hole soldering tutorial and iron maintenance
Proper soldering iron maintenance and soldering techniques required to get a perfect solder joint every time. Via PCBheaven.
PID controlled electric smoker
Tom built a PID controlled electric smoker. A closed clay pot with a PID controlled hot plate inside heats to a constant temperature. Bits of wood tossed on the hot plate make the smoke. Via the forum.
Global Geek Tour New York schedule
The New York Global Geek tour runs from September 26th (Wednesday) until the 30th (Sunday). If you’re in town for the Maker Faire or Open Hardware Summit and you’d like to join us for a tasty food crawl (Wednesday) or a tour of NYC electronics stores (Friday) please contact us for more info. Full schedule […]
Little Wire Python library
Adam ported Little Wire’s library to Python. The library was already available in C, C++, and Processing, and now Python users can enjoy the little hack tool as well. Little Wire is multi-featured USB controlled open source hardware tool packed in a minimal form factor designed by Ihsan Kehribar. Even though it has minimal form […]
DIY flux made from pine gum straight from the tree
We’ve posted about homemade flux before, but Tom has taken it to a whole new level. He used pine gum straight from the tree for his Flux recipe. He dissolved the rosin in some 99% isopropyl alcohol, and filtered it using coffee filters. I tried making flux from an even more raw material, pine gum […]
Workshop Update for September 18th, 2012
We’re planing our New York Global Geek Tour. We got a chance to refine our Open Hardware USB presentation, and put together New York schedules.
US big box of parts moving along
Buzzdavidsion let us know that he received the big box of parts, and sent it along to the next one in line. He also took pictures of the things he took out (picture below), and the things he put in (picture above). Below is an inventory of the box.
NEXT WEEK: New York City East Village food crawl 2012
Last year we failed to discover a New York City equivalent of the Mission District taco crawl. In 2012 we’re trying several different stand-and-eat joints in the East Village. The crawl will kick off on Wednesday evening, September 27th, somewhere in the East Village. The exact time and meeting place is yet to be decided. […]
NEXT WEEK: New York Global Geek Tour 2012
Next week we are heading for the World Maker Faire 2012 held in New York. We’ll also be attending the Open Hardware Summit 2012 during the same week to give a presentation on USB and open hardware. As always we try to plan some trip to local electronics shop, and eat some great stuff along […]