Yoshi designed a Arduino Leonardo clone called the Leonard Pirate. It uses an ATmega32U4 with hardware USB peripheral. 6 analog and 18 digital pins broken out to headers. The board is designed with 2 choices of USB connectors. Use a USB A-type male connector that plugs directly into the USB port, or a mini-B female […]
Author Archives: DP
Bus Pirate v3b free PCB build
Andrew used his Thanksgiving break to build a free Bus Pirate v3b PCB. He’s looking forward to using the JTAG XSVF player to upload firmware on his Cygni CPLD board. If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll send you a […]
App note: Using ShockBurst with nRFL01 and nRFLU1 ICs
Nordic’s nRF 2.4GHz transceivers come with a built in ShockBurst transmission mode. This app note describes how to implement it using the nRFL01 and nRFLU1 ICs. ShockBurst is a special transmission mode built into nRF devices. It allows microcontrollers to send and receive raw data, while the nRF chips handle the transmission and reception internally. […]
Week in (p)review: December 09, 2011
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week: This weekend was Make Tokyo Meeting 07, Akihibara Electric Town tour Bus Pirate PIC programmer through-hole version Rescuing an ArduinoBT board with the Bus Pirate Bus Pirate v3.5 and PICqueño32 DIP free PCB build Check out Josef’s homemade Bus Pirate and AVR-based PIC24F programmer, Kiran’s […]
App note: PSoC I2C to SPI bridge.
Here is an app note from Cypress that describes how to implement a I2C to SPI bridge on a PSoC IC. PSoCs are devices that incorporate a microcontroller, a logical gate array, and some analog peripherals. What makes them different than microcontrollers is that all the peripherals are separated from the microcontroller. They can function […]
Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB
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 […]
App note: Single battery boost converter
Here is an app note from Microchip that describes how to built a single battery boost converter. It provides a way to power higher voltage circuits with a lower voltage battery. The design is based around the MCP1640 IC. It is a 350mA 500Khz boost converter with an integrated switch. Due to it’s design the […]
App note: Dual 1.4MHz buck regulator with USB ‘Dying Gasp’ support
This app note from Maxim describes how to build a USB powered circuit that will provide a short power-failure notice before losing power. This is called the “Dying Gasp” and it allows devices to preform a proper shut-down when USB power fails. A safe USB “dying gasp” shutdown requires a local energy storage capacitor to […]
Microchip end of 2011 sale
Robots tipped us on Microchip’s development tool 2011 End of year sale: Enter “YES2011” upon checkout at microchipDIRECT to receive the discount. Offer expires 5th January, 2012 14 Development tool kits are included in the offer, choose from the list below and receive savings of up to 40%!! Thanks Robots! Via the forum.
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, […]
Little Wire – minimal AVR programmer and more
The Little Wire is an open source AVR programmer that’s packed full of features: An AVR programer Four digital GPIO pins ADC with 10 bit resolution Two parallel hardware PWM outputs An USB interface A SPI interface It is built to be DIY friendly by using all through hole components. It is also an open […]
Guess the device
TitanMKD asked the forum to guess-the-device. He bought it from eBay, and is planing to do a mysterious hack on it. But before he gets down to it, he would like us to guess what it is. You can leave your guesses in the comments, or in the forum. A free PCB code to the […]
Driving Nixie tubes
In the second article about his Nixie tube clock Luca shows how to drive Nixie tubes with a microcontroller. The first article covered the power supply, we covered it here. Nixie tubes are started with a high initial voltage Vigh, around 150-180volts. Once ignited they work at a maintaining voltage Vm, and consume a average […]
Soldering iron driver update
Arhi continues to develop the universal soldering iron driver. This is a rendering of the third generation PCB. The soldering iron driver can use soldering pencils with K-type or PTC type temperature sensors like Solomon, Hakko, and Weller, to name a few… Generation 3 has a reworked analog section. It that now fully supports PTC […]
Bus Pirate PIC programmer through-hole version
MickM decided to rework our PIC programing adapter to a through-hole version. He made two versions of the board. One for both Bus Pirate V2go and V3, and one that supports only V3. I got very confused reading the schematic, and had to redraw it. One thing led to another and I laid it out […]
Bus Pirate v3.5 free PCB build
NBitWonder made a blog entry about his free Bus Pirate v3.5 PCB build. He used our simple mouser shopping cart to get the parts. If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll send you a coupon code for the free PCB […]
PIC32s in DIP packages are available at microchipDIRECT
PIC32 microcontrollers in DIP packages are in stock at microchipDirect. The prices range from $2.51 in the singles to $1.82 in high volumes. This compares well to 8, and 16bit PICs which also range around $2 in the same package. Via the forum. Thanks Shaos.
Homemade Bus Pirate and AVR-based PIC24F programmer
Josef built this homemade version of the Bus Pirate. Unfortunately he didn’t have a programer to upload the firmware, so being a good hacker he designed and built his own. The programer is AVR based and uses a MAX232 IC to interface with the computer. He promised to post the AVR firmware, and the programing […]
Java circuit simulator
BrentBXR tipped us of about this cool and educational tool. It’s an interactive electronics circuit simulator. It has some pretty cool features, like having the direction of the current animated on the circuit traces, or highlighting the high signal traces in digital circuits. There is a bunch of circuit examples ranging from Ohm’s law demonstrations […]
Texas Instruments anounces new F563x and F663x MSP430 microcontrollers.
Texas Instruments just announced the addition of F563X and F663X lines of microcontrollers to their MSP430 range. Here is the feature list of the new devices: More memory options with 256kB flash and 18kB RAM allow the addition of wireless stacks, more application features, richer graphical user interfaces (GUI) and the addition of a real-time […]