After posting about SILtheDIL, we received another idea on how to break-out dual row headers. Victzh and Shaos made similar adapters that allow dual row headers to be used with a standard breadboard. They write: “it’s more like “DILtheDIP” or “DIPtheDIL” :)”. Via the forum.
Author Archives: DP
80M direct conversion receiver update
Jason continued to develop his 7400 contest entry the 80M direct conversion receiver, here is an update: Finally, I addressed the lack of knowledge of what frequency is being tuned by adding a frequency counter. It is based on the XC9572XL breakout board from Ian and company. Coding the counter was a good learning experience […]
#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs
Every Tuesday we give away two coupons for the free PCB drawer via Twitter. This post was announced on Twitter, and in 24 hours we’ll send coupon codes to two random retweeters. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week: Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch […]
Soldering the 8bit PIC SchmartBOARD
Here is a video showing how to solder a PIC16F88 and a few discrete components on a 8bit PIC SchmartBoard. The 8bit PIC SchmartBoard is a development board that supports many of Microchip’s 8bit microcontrollers in SOIC packages. It has a on-board crystal, 5v voltage regulator and 28 breakout pins for the PIC. It also […]
Interview with Eben at the ARM TechCon 2011
Here is an interview with Eben from Rasberry PI, the $25 business-card sized Linux computer. The final product is due to be released at the end of this year. We think its really cool that the main goal of this project is to introduce young children to programing. Via the contact form.
Seeed Studio’s new packing boxes
New packing boxes from Seeed Studio: We used to stock almost all products in static-free plastic bags. Fair enough, it’s convenient and also easy for people to handling. However, the plastic causes many problems like environmental pollution, weak protection and bad product image I’d like to say. So, we started to prepare a new packing […]
RetroBSD port for MAX32
Serge ported the RetroBSD version of the BSD 2.11 Unix operating system to the chipKIT MAX32 board. To get it started an SD card shield is needed. Features of the RetroBSD are: Small resource requirements. RetroBSD requires only 128 kbytes of RAM to be up and running user applications. Memory protection. Kernel memory is fully […]
LiPo auto-balancing circuit
ScottD tipped us to the LiPo Auto Balancer circuit featured in the Elektor magazine’s June 2010 issue. When using multiple lithium ion/polymer batteries in series an auto-balancing circuit is needed to make sure all the cells charge equally. Due to slight differences in capacity, some cells will reach full charge before others. This effect increases […]
The human side of Arduino
Carlos made a mosaic picture of the Arduino board from faces of the Arduino Playground group on LinkedIn. The mosaic is made from 190 individual profile pictures. A zoom-out video of the mosaic is featured below. Via the contact form.
Eclipse hardware debugging guide
Brian made a tutorial on using eclipse for JTAG debugging LM3S based boards: I have published in the docs section a guide on how to use Eclipse to do JTAG based hardware debugging for the LM3S development boards (Cygni, Eridani, Procyon).Eclipse is complex software which has a lot of power and settings, not all of […]
App note: Digital HID Ballast Reference Design
High intensity discharge ballasts, used in cars today, require a large set of analog controllers to ignite an HID bulb and reach steady-state operation. This reference design from Microchip describes how to make an HID ballast using a dsPIC and a few discrete components. The reference design uses 9-16VDC and outputs 35W of steady state […]
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: Lithium Ion/Polymer portable power supply
Portable devices need an uninterrupted power supply both when the circuit runs on a battery, and when it is connected to a charger. This app note shows how to design a portable power supply outputting 5volts and 3.3volts. The MAX1811 battery management IC handles the charging of a lithium ion/polymer battery. A DC/DC boost circuit […]
Superprobe free PCB build
Bennyboy built a free Superprobe PCB. 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 drawer. Via the forum.
App note: CPLD special function pins
Here is some basic information about special CPLD pin functions you might need when getting started with Xilinx or any other CPLD: Global Clock (GCK) pins Many high-speed digital logic designs need a clock signal that reaches all components simultaneously. While any CPLD pin can input a clock signal and distribute it to the design, […]
Another PICkit2 clone
Arup built a PICkit2 clone, to get it to work, he previously had to build a JDM2 serial port programmer to upload firmware into the PICKIT2 onboard PIC18F2550. I have built Ian’s JDM2 programmer and the same PK2clone from same site, but in both cases I used etched boards. I had to make a PK2 for […]
App note: Choosing and using bypass capacitors
Bypass capacitors ensure a device has a stable and clean power supply. In most cases capacitors are chosen out of habit, such as the typical 0.1uF ceramic capacitor we use. This app note describes how calculate, model, and use different types of bypass capacitors. Included is a table with all the relevant information on different […]
Dangerous Prototypes logos
Sven is doing some awesome work designing Dangerous Prototypes grunge logos. We’re going to have a version of this made into stickers.
DIY SILtheDIL adapter
Many development modules come with DIL headers on each side of the board. This makes them totally unusable with a breadboard. To remedy this Arakis built an adapter that converts 2X20 dual row headers to a 40 pin single row of headers . It can either be used to directly stick a module into a […]
Week in (p)review: November 04, 2011
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week: Dangerous Prototypes source code visualization Open 7400 competition winners Home Camp: Dangerous Prototype’s presentations Bus Pirate v4 free PCB build Greeeg developed a micro board for the Bus Pirate v3 Jared wrote about his experience interfacing the Bus Pirate with an audio codec chip using […]