Benjamin wanted to use the Bus Pirate with various near field communication protocols, so he designed this breakout board for the TRF7970A NFC chip. It has a 13.56Mhz on-board antenna, and a optional SMA antenna connector. Other devices can also interface with this board, all the IO pins of the IC are brought to a […]
Author Archives: DP
Open source SMT pick and place machine
Ever get tired of fiddling with tiny surface mount components using tweezers and a magnifying glass? The OpenPnP project that aims to be your sweet relief: OpenPnP is a project to create the plans, prototype and software for a completely Open Source SMT pick and place machine that anyone can afford. I believe that with […]
nedoCPU-16: PIC16F87X breakout board
Here is a breakout board for the PIC16F87X microcontrollers. It has a onboard 5V power supply, a 20MHz crystal, and a reset button, while all the IO pins have been broken out into a single row header, so its easy to interface with a breadboard.The UART and ICSP programing header have been broken out on […]
Eaglefree PIC18F2550 development board
Jose built a PIC18F2550 development board. It’s on a single layer with all through-hole components, making it friendly to DIY PCB etchers. It was designed using the Eagle free license constraints, and fits within the 10cmX8cm board format. The board features: 8 LEDs. 4 push buttons with pull-down 220Ω resistors. 2 potentiometers. 1 relay with […]
ProtoStack ATmega328 kit review and Arduino clone build
Here is a comprehensive review of the ProtoStack ATmega328 kit that Eric won in the 7400 contest. He was pleasantly surprised that Protostack included an USBasp AVR programer. The review goes into detail on how to build a Arduino clone on this development kit. I managed to get my 7400 Logic PLL Based Switcher in […]
New beta release of the OLS client
Jawi has been working hard on the Logic Sniffer OLS client. After the first beta release two issues were identified and fixed. He is now proceeding with the second beta release. If you’d like to help out, please download and test the OLS client for the Logic Sniffer. Via the forum.
ITead Studio mystery X-Mas gifts
ITead Studio started a X-mas mystery gift campaign. First 100 to follow their Facebook page or RT their Tweet will receive it. As the title states the content of the gift package is a mystery but they did drop us this line: not only the physical gifts but also you will get a discount coupons […]
PixelInvaders: LED matrix panel
Michu built a LED matrix panel that is controlled by his PixelController software we blogged about. The panel consists of 64 individual RGB modules. The modules have three RGB LEDs on them controlled with a LPD6803 serial shift register LED driver. The color range is 15bit deep, or 5bit per basic color. By connecting them […]
App note: Software real time clock and calendar.
Here is an app note from Microchip that provides information on how to implement a real time clock and calendar on the PIC16f18xx series of microcontrollers. It uses an external 32.768KHz crystal that drives the Timer1 resource of the uC. The neat thing about a 32.768Khz clock source is that it can be divided by […]
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: Low-Cost Electric Range Control Using a Triac
While this app note is intended to replace mechanical thermostats, we’re not really interested in that part of it. What does interest us is how to build a controller that interfaces with loads on the mains power line. The neat thing about this design is that it is powered from mains, using a capacitor, zener […]
App note: GPIO Expander Provides Charge Pump for Blue LEDs
Adding blue LEDs to a interface panel looks cool. The down side is that some blue LEDs require more than 3.5V to work, which can be a hassle if your design works on 3.3V. This app note from Maxim explains how to implement a charge pump on their I2C GPIO expander ICs using the built […]
App note: AVR Butterfly
AVR butterfly is a cheap LCD development platform for the ATmega169 microcontroller. This board features: LCD-on-Glass display with 120 segments. 4 direction joystick with a push-button. Piezo element as a speaker. 32KHz crystal for real time clock projects. 4Mbit DataFlash memory. RS-232 level converter. NTC thermistor as a temperature sensor. Light dependent resistor as a […]
Week in (p)review: November 25, 2011
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week: XC95144XL breakout board was featured in this week’s status update post From the mail bag: Open source code inspires Bus Pirate v3.5, MCP2200 breakout board, ENC424J600 breakout board and Bus Pirate v3.5 free PCB build Logic Sniffer: Hacking cheap RFID readers Another Logic Sniffer ground mod […]
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, […]
Soldering iron driver parts: Weller PES51 pencil
Lots of progress is being made on the soldering iron driver. We’ll be testing our version with the Weller PES51 50W soldering pencil. We like the placement of the temperature sensor on this iron. It’s is located in the center of the iron and fits into a recess at the back of the tip. This […]
Black Friday post
It’s Black Friday, the busiest shopping day in the US. It’s a day to sell stuff, so here we are. At least you don’t have to wait in lines to get our stuff. Bus Pirate universal serial interface ($30), LCD adapter ($9), probe cable ($5), and case ($2.50) USB and Serial enabled LCD backpack ($17) […]
DIY 3D printer using DPL projector
Peter is building a 3D high-resolution Printer that uses a DLP projector to cure resin in layers, building up a 3D model. He started a blog following all the stages of his build, from the idea to completion. This video shows a recording of his X and Z axis control test.
Bus Pirate v3.5 free PCB build
Kiran built a free Bus Pirate v3.5 PCB. He programed it using the PICkit 2 PIC programer. He is mostly interested in Bus Pirate’s AVR programing feature, so he can get started with his own Arduino designs. If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on […]
Thursday Project: XC95144XL CPLD breakout board PREVIEW
After Jason shared his design of a XC95144XL breakout board, we made our own breakout for the same chip. It features a single row of 39 pins that can be interfaced with a standard bread board. All the remaining pins are broken-out to dual-row headers on top of the board. A 800mA 3.3V voltage regulator […]