Here’s a small breakout board for the ATmega32U4. A power supply, decoupling caps, button, USB jack, and an AVR programing header are populated on the board. As an added feature an open source bootloader that works with AVRDUDE is pre-programed. We like the AVR 8-bit family and were excited to see Atmel upgrade the series […]
Author Archives: DP
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: February 17, 2012
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon: WORKSHOP VIDEO: How to mail free PCBs HOW-TO: Get your PCBs manufactured Giveaway: 4 LeoStick Arduino Leonardo compatible USB sticks Giveaway: LeoStick winners A culture of ethics in open source hardware? 3D Model: Bus Pirate 3.5c Superprobe […]
Yet another SMD soldering video tutorial
Here’s another SMD soldering video tutorial. It features the use of 4 different flux types: pen, liquid, gel, and syringe. The video starts with soldering a 0603 chip resistor and moves up to a 208pin 0.5mm pitch QFP IC. Via the comments.
Giveaway: LeoStick winners
Today we announce the winners of the LeoStick contest. Freetronics’ new LeoStick is an Arduino Leonardo compatible USB board. It’s a simple breakout for the ATmega32U4 microcontroller in small USB stick shape. It has 2 RGB LEDs and a buzzer on-board for experimenting. There were lots of great ideas for projects based on the LeoStick, […]
512K SRAM memory module with 13 pin interface
An open source 512K SRAM memory module for adding extra ram to your project: I have designed a very simple PCB module that allows access to 512KBytes of Static RAM. It is compatible with any microcontroller with at least 13 free digital IO pins and the ability to run from a 3.3v or 5v supply. […]
Giveaway: 4 LeoStick Arduino Leonardo compatible USB sticks
Latter today we’ll announce the winners of the LeoStick Arduino Leonardo compatible USB sticks. If you’d like one just leave a comment on the original contest post with an idea for a cool project.
Lil Bang – Sound trigger for cameras
Viktor made a sound trigger for his DSLR camera: Now that I can take pictures of lightning I decided that I also want to be able to trigger my camera with sound. An op-amp filters and amplifies a microphone signal. The output is fed to a PIC microcontroller that triggers the flash when the sound […]
Giveaway: 4 LeoStick Arduino Leonardo compatible USB sticks
Tomorrow we’ll give away four LeoStick Arduino Leonardo compatible USB sticks. If you’d like one just leave a comment on yesterday’s post with an idea for a cool project.
HOW-TO: Get your PCBs manufactured
The latest version of this tutorial is available on the documentation wiki. In the last few years many inexpensive PCB services have popped up. It used to be that buying PCBs in hobby quantities was expensive and filled with gotchas. Now, places like Seeed Studio can send your PCBs to the inexpensive prototyping factory in […]
Free PCBs for pictures of PCB errors
We’re writing a new tutorial on PCB manufacturing, and we’d like to add pictures of common PCB manufacturing errors. We’ll give out free PCB coupons in exchange for open source licensed images (limit 4). Here’s the examples we need, the first two are the most important right now: via alignment problem (drill not centered in […]
Testing the photovoltaic effect with a transistor
When you expose the silicon die of a transistor to a light source a charge is produced. CircuitsDIY opened up a 2n3055 transistor and did some experimenting. With the help of a magnifying glass he was able to built up a charge of 0.65V and produce 42.2mA of current. Most photovoltaic cells are made of […]
Builld a touch activated Valentine’s LED card
Happy Valentine’s from Dangerous Prototypes. This touch activated Valentine’s card is one of Ian’s early projects at DIY Life. It’s designed to be home-etched on a single-sided PCB. A PIC16F microcontroller fades the LEDs like a heart beat. It’s activated when someone touches the conductive pad, which allows current through a PNP transistor and wakes […]
Giveaway: 4 LeoStick Arduino Leonardo compatible USB sticks
Freetronics’ new LeoStick is an Arduino Leonardo compatible USB board. It’s a simple breakout for the ATmega32U4 microcontroller in small USB stick shape. It has 2 RGB LEDs and a buzzer on-board for experimenting. The LeoStick is just like the upcoming Arduino Leonardo, but given the “honey, I shrunk the kids” treatment! Just pop it […]
Free PCB Sunday statistics – when will you get one?
A happy winner of this Sunday’s Free PCB giveaway suggests there is a 50% chance of winning a PCB after 25 weeks: Thanks a lot! Just for the statistics: it took 13 drawings to get this code, which is way below average (there seem to be, on average, 110 comments on each sunday, which means […]
Large plot data warning from Cadsoft Eagle CAM processor
Today we got a new warning from Eagle’s CAM processor when exporting gerbers to make PCBs. When the CAM processor started we got the error “Board contains a polygon that may cause extremely large plot data”. After some removing nearly every component from the PCB, we found that it was related to the arrows on […]
DIY rosin solder flux made with isopropyl alcohol
Arhi tried his hand making DIY rosin-based solder flux. He added crushed rosin to isopropyl alcohol until it had the desired viscosity. The video is a test of the new flux on 1 mm and 0.5 mm pitch components. By his account it works better then some commercial products, but there’s also more smoke and […]
Serial port monitor with 2×20 LCD and 4K text buffer
Kerry uses a DIY serial display to show debugging data sent from an Arduino’s UART. Sometimes the data comes too fast to read, so he added a 4K buffer and controls to scroll thorough the history. …if your application generates a lot of messages, it would still be hard to spot the relevant information as […]
Free ebook on VHDL programing
Free Range VHDL is a free ebook on VHDL programming. VHDL is a logic simulation and programming language used with FPGAs, and CPLDs. If you want to get started with VHDL here is an inexpensive way to learn the basics and more. Via GadgetFactory.
How long does it take to get your PCBs?
We’re writing a new tutorial on PCB manufacturing, and we’d like to include a table of approximate turn-around times for popular 2-layer PCB services. If you’ve ordered PCBs in the past we could use your help. Who made the PCB? How long did it take to process? How long did it take to ship to […]