One of Ian’s projects featured at Hack a Day, a USB remote control receiver, was the 5th most popular project of 2009. We’re surprised the Bus Pirate didn’t make that list, but we’re proud of this project too. Our primary music and video player is a PC, we made this device because we needed it, […]
Author Archives: Ian
Web platform: kit vs assembled
The web platform, December’s project of the month, is our second to be offered as a kit or as assembled hardware. We guessed that the kit would be the most popular option, but we were totally wrong. Seeed Studio’s latest report shows the assembled version is preferred almost 3 to 1. Is it the SSOP […]
Bus Pirate OpenOCD (JTAG) support update
OpenOCD is a popular open source JTAG utility. Zach Welch, a regular contributor to the project, has offered to help add Bus Pirate support.You can follow the progress in his git repository. The current plan is to port the excellent work done by the USBPROG project to the Bus Pirate. Here are some tentative goals: […]
Hackable Christmas card build time-lapse
Piotr got a hackable Christmas card PCB on free PCB Sunday, and made this time-lapse video of his build. Excellent use of tweezers, a key tool for surface mount soldering.
Bus Pirate feature requests?
Firmware version 3.3 for the Bus Pirate will be released in a few weeks. Are there any bug fixes or features you’d like to see in the next firmware release? We’ve made these updates since the last release: Self-test now checks for voltage regulator over range, as well as under. UART macro 3: transparent bridge […]
Xymon server and network stats on the #twatch
Xymon, previously “Hobbit”, monitors server and network up-time, provides real-time monitoring, availability reports, downtime alerts, etc. noxin submitted a Perl script that displays Xymon data and alerts on the #twatch networked LCD screen. You can browse all the #twatch scripts in the project SVN. The #twatch is currently in stock at Seeed Studio: $30 for […]
Rough draft: 48 channel networked LED controller
Here’s a new project we’d like to develop openly, like the recent logic analyzer board . This rough sketch shows a 48 channel LED controller with an ethernet interface. Our primary goals are: 48 channels of 10bit PWM LED control Ethernet interface Up to 120mA of LEDs per channel The networked LED controller would use […]
Free PCB Sunday: USB RGB color changer
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 professionally-made PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. This is a USB controlled RGB color changing light. Ian did this project at DIY […]
Geeky holiday gifts
Did you get any hardware or geek toys this holiday? We received two replacement soldering irons for the Aoyue 968 rework station in the lab. The plastic handle on the old iron broke, but it still worked so we epoxied it back together. Not a fan of high heat, the epoxy often came loose in […]
@tweet_tree performance report
@tweet_tree, our Twitter controlled Christmas tree, will be online and accepting your tweets for the rest of today. A performance and traffic report follow.
Twistmas Tree
Marisa tipped us to another interactive Christmas tree that uses Twitter. Alpay Kasal’s Twistmas Tree uses Processing to scrape Twitter search results for keywords. Ornaments with holiday keywords blink when new search results are found. A netbook running Processing with Twitter4J is used for performing searches of predetermined holiday words and generates a queue of […]
PCBs sent this week
We sent a bunch of PCBs to Seeed Studio’s Fusion service this week. The open source logic analyzer prototype was the most anticipated board, you can get the final hardware for free if you suggest the name. The final design candidates for the PIC high voltage programming adapter went to the board house too. Looking […]
Twitter controlled tree instructable
The Instructables version of the Twitter controlled Christmas tree is now online.
Name the open source logic analyzer, get one free
We’ve been working on an open source logic analyzer prototype with Jack Gassett of the Gadget Factory. Gerbers will go to the board house before the end of this week. Until now we’ve called this project by the codename ‘SUMP PUMP’, because it’s a data pump for the open source SUMP logic analyzer client. This […]
SparkFun's Bus Pirate
Months ago SparkFun mentioned that they were working on something similar to the Bus Pirate. We asked them to please consider using the Bus Pirate design because it already has a bunch of features, and it’s in the public domain. Today we received a prototype of the SparkFun Bus Pirate. SparkFun is the fourth company […]
@tweet_tree live USTREAM
Live video of @tweet_tree on USTREAM (sorry, WordPress wouldn’t let us embed it). Send colors or color codes to @tweet_tree on Twitter, watch the tree change. The broadcast has ended, thanks to everyone who gave us a light show with Twitter! @tweet_tree understands color names (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) and custom 24bit color […]
Free PCB Sunday: Web platform
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 professionally-made PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. This week we’re giving away free PCBs for our powerful new embedded web platform. The […]
Annotated Bus Pirate photo
Gerard Braad made a fully annotated photo of the Bus Pirate on Flickr. Each pin, chip, and passive component is described in photo notes as you move your mouse over the image. Bus Pirate v3 is available for immediate delivery from Seeed Studio for $30, including worldwide shipping. Each Bus Pirate purchased at Seeed Studio […]
Bus Pirate firmware v3.1
Version 3.1 of the Bus Pirate firmware is now on the project Google Code page. This release includes a few bug fixes, and updates to the Spanish and Italian translations. The biggest bug fix corrects a problem with frozen hardware when using the live UART monitor. The main Bus Pirate firmware now occupies almost all […]
Web platform: Twitter controlled Christmas tree
UPDATE: Live video of @tweet_tree on USTREAM (sorry, WordPress wouldn’t let us embed it). The broadcast has ended, thanks to everyone who gave us a light show with Twitter! Choose the color of our Christmas tree. @tweet_tree is a Christmas tree that everyone can control from Twitter. Just tweet a color to @tweet_tree. A small […]