MIT Media Lab developed a camera capable of taking pictures at a trillion frames per second. It can capture images of a bean of light moving through space. The light source is a short laser pulse, and and reminds us of a ray-gun. The camera only photographs one vertical line at a time. The process […]
Author Archives: DP
Week in (p)review: December 23, 2011
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week: USB Infrared Toy firmware v22 beta Video: An update from the workshop PIC24FJ64GB/A002 breakout board in this week’s status update post Bus Pirate week, day 5 – measure a capacitor and parts unboxing Bus Pirate v4 free PCB build RFID breakout board for the Bus […]
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, […]
Using pogo-pins for hardware testing
Here’s how Spark Fun uses pogo-pins to quickly test their products. Pogo pins are spring loaded pins that make quick connections to PCB test points. Test beds are made from a PCB that has pogo-pins aligned with with contacts on the device to test. Sometimes SparkFun includes a microcontroller on the test bed to interface […]
Chemically etched stainless steel stencils from ITead
ITead started offering chemically etched stainless steel stencils. They’re usually used for easy solder paste placement on SMD boards. They recommend their stencils for SMD components with a pin spacing greater than 0.5mm, and passive components in 0603 packages and above. Stencils are 0.1-0.2mm thick, and are supplied with supporting frames. Available frame sizes range […]
AVR-based PIC24FJ programmer uploads Bus Pirate firmware
Fezoj made an AVR-based PIC24FJ programmer to upload the firmware on his homemade Bus Pirate. The circuit consist of an ATmega8, a MAX232 serial port IC, and a few passives. He succeeded in programing his Bus Pirate and has released his source files on github. Via the forum. Get your own handy Bus Pirate for […]
Bus Pirate v4 free PCB build
Frithjof posted pictures of his free Bus Pirate v4.0 PCB build. The version 4 is the latest Bus Pirate iteration. It uses a PIC with more memory, faster on-chip USB, onboard EEPROM and more… If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll […]
Portable software defined transceiver: Power supply
Jason has been working on a portable software defined transceiver design for the past year. Every day this week he’ll discuss a different part of the hardware in a series of guest posts. You can chat with the designer in the forum. Today’s post is about the power supply: It’s not as exciting (to me) […]
USB Infrared Toy firmware v22 beta
USB Infrared Toy firmware v22 beta is available for download in the forum. If you have a chance to test it, we’d appreciate any bug reports. If there are no major issues, a final firmware will be released next week. Major updates: Fixed 48byte transmit bug, thanks JTR! Fixed bug when IRS mode settings were […]
PACE-ST50 soldering station with a TD100 pencil
Arhi recently received his PACE-ST50 soldering station and wrote about his first impressions (mechanical translation). A simple aluminum box with a display and a few buttons is the as most soldering stations. What sets this one apart from most cheap soldering stations is the complex electronics and features packed inside. Support for InteliHeat type pencils […]
PROTOTYPE PREVIEW: PIC24FJ64GB/A002 breakout board
Earlier this week we prototyped a transistor tester circuit on a breadboard. We wanted a start with a full microcontroller and power circuit, ready to go, Arduino-style. All the breakouts we had on hand were a pain to use. Most obscure the prototo area and many were just too big. Inspired by Shaos’ nedoCPU-32, we […]
Techspray Flux remover aerosol can
George received a freebee Flux remover spray from Farnell. Flux is awesome, we cannot imagine soldering SMD components without it. The down side is that they usually leave residue on the board. This spray is one way to remove it. Point the can on the area you want to clean and the high pressured chemicals […]
Olimex PIC-KIT3 PIC microcontroller programmer
Olimex has another Microchip PICKIT 3 clone. It comes in a more compact package that reminds us of old parallel port DB-25 casings. They claim it is fully compatible with the original. One difference is that it uses a single bi-color LED instead of 3 LEDs the original has.
Santa’s ATtiny13 LED hat
Mark mounted ATtiny13 controlled Christmas LEDs into a santa cap: Here is the post demonstrating the circuit nicely mounted in an Altoids tin, powering lights I’ve put inside my Santa hat. Via comments.
PICqueno32 DIP pinout sticker
Schazamp made some pinout stickers for the PICqueno32 DIP project. The silkscreen pinouts on the bottom of the PCB become obscured when mounted on a breadboard. So Schazamp decided to make pin legend that he could stick to the top, and side of the board. Grab the document to print your own stickers from the […]
ATmega fuse recovery board
Mick built the ATmega fusebit doctor. It is a fuse recovery board for the ATmega family of microcontrollers. An ATmega8 uC uses the parallel programing method to reset the fuses for supported uCs. It is very easy to use. Just place your broken uC into a designated socket and press the button. Via the forum.
RFID breakout board for the Bus Pirate built
Here’s the completed Near Field Communication (NFC) board designed by titanmkd. It uses the TRF7970A IC to read RFIDs from the Bus Pirate and other devices, we wrote about it earlier. All the systems check out OK so far. The next step is to communicate with an RFID card. Via the forum.
LED mod car gauge cluster
Garrett and his friend were annoyed by the classic amber lighting of the gauge cluster on his friend’s Chevy. They decided to replace the light bulbs with white LEDs. He was nice enough to write up a full tutorial of their endeavor with lots and lots of pictures. Via the forum.
Portable software defined transceiver: Mixer
Jason has been working on a portable software defined transceiver design for the past year. Every day this week he’ll discuss a different part of the hardware in a series of guest posts. You can chat with the designer in the forum. Today’s post is about the quadrature sampling detector. Here’s the design for the […]
nedoCPU-32 PIC32 breakout build and review
Schazamp received a nedoCPU-32 32bit PIC breakout board from Shaos. He built stuffed it and got a simple “blink LED” firmware to run on it quickly. This is a nice board, and I’m looking forward to messing around with it. It might be a good starting point for trying to adapt the chip-kit Arduino bootloader […]