In an earlier Workshop Video we challenged Sjaak to solder a TMP006 non-contact temperature sensor in a BGA package. We lacked the skills to make it happen, but this week DP engineer Jer shows how he successfully soldered 2 of 4 breakout boards. Jer doesn’t hold the the chip in place with kapton tape like […]
Author Archives: Ian
How (not) to sell PCBs: PCB drawer first year sales breakdown
A while back we started selling Bus Pirate v3.5a-SOIC “DIY Edition” PCBs from the free PCB drawer for $3.95. Our informal survey and found that $5, including shipping, is a sweet spot for one board. So we hacked Zen Cart to accept PayPal for only one item, and started taking orders. With shipping, two boards […]
Giveaway: VFD tube sets winners
Today we announce the winners of the VFD tube set contest. There were lots of great ideas for projects based on the VFD tube, thanks for your submissions. Congratulations to Brian O., his idea for an odometer, mounted on his power wheelchair scored a VFD tube set: Many posters are forgetting one important thing: VFDs are power […]
HOW-TO VIDEO #09: Visit Akihabara Electric Town
Akihabara is a giant neighborhood of electronics stores in Tokyo, Japan. This weekend we explored the markets with Tokyo Hacker Space on the first leg of our Global Geek Tour. The SEG Electronics Market in Shenzhen is definitely bigger, but Akihabara is a lot easier to get to. We can visit Japan with just a […]
A President in favor of open source
“”He who receives an idea from me receives it without lessening me, as he who lights his candle at mine receives light without darkening me.”” – Thomas Jefferson Happy President’s Day!
WORKSHOP VIDEO #08: How to mail free PCBs
This week we talk about the Free PCB drawer, and show how we mail out all those free PCBs. We order PCBs from Seeed Studio’s Fusion PCB service and get ten copies of every board. Usually we only need 2 or 3, so that’s a whole lot of PCBs we’ll never use. Since the beginning, […]
A culture of ethics in open source hardware?
Phillip Torrone of Adafruit and Make wrote a piece on the culture of ethics in open source hardware: I spend most of my days working on open source hardware in some way, and I wanted to talk about some of the {unspoken} rules we all, well, many, seem to follow. Why? Because the core group […]
#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 […]
XT-IDE adapter with CPLD v2 working
Pietja successfully built and tested our CPLD-based XT-IDE adapter v2. These boards give old XT PCs the ability to interface with IDE hard-drives and compact flash cards. There are still lots of these old boxes out there running medical and industrial equipment, and the XT-IDE cards keep them going with modern drives. The Vintage Computer […]
WORKSHOP VIDEO #07: Video editing workstation build
Making workshop videos is a lot of fun, but editing the high-def video is painfully slow on even our best CAD workstation. We set out to upgrade one workstation to run Adobe Premiere with a budget of about 500 bucks. It’s not a killer gaming rig, but it encodes videos in minutes instead of hours: […]
Workshop Video #06: Battle of the solder flux
We broke out 4 different types of flux we had in the workshop and tried them with surface mount parts. Liquid flux, flux paste, syringe flux, and a flux marker are all tested. We used each to solder a 0805 resistor and some pins of a QFP 0.5mm pitch IC to an xQFP protoboard. Edsyn […]
Testing post integration with Google+ this week
If you’re a Google+ social networking fan, we’ll be experimenting with post syndication on our Google+ page this week. As always, we don’t use social networking features malware widgets on DangerousPrototypes.com to better protect your privacy. We do syndicate posts to Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+ if you’re into that.
We get letters: More SEO and Realize Inc rapid prototyping spam
I need your help. Realize Inc. is a competitor of mine. I fired my SEO firm for spamming everyone. However, I’m now on page 2 while Realize is top of page 1. They have an unfair advantage over me because I won’t engage in spamming practices. Is there any way that you know of to […]
Workshop video #05: USB Persistence of Vision Toy firmware
After more than a year of off and on development, there’s finally a working firmware for the USB Persistence of Vision Toy. With a bit more tweaking we’ll be ready to release the code. This week’s workshop video is an overview of the POV Toy project. Displays pattern or words when waved in the air […]
Apple fails to ban Samsung Galaxy Tabs in the Netherlands, again
Last year Apple successfully sued to stop the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab in Australia and most of Europe over copyright and patent disputes. In Australia the injunction was based on the “pinching” input jesture, which Apple “owns”. Over the past six months the vast majority of the cases have been dismissed on appeal. […]
Workshop video #04: Bus Blaster v4 solder and assembly
Today is the second half of the Bus Blaster v4 workshop video. We solder the board, including two big TQFP chips and a bunch of 0603 passives. The Bus Blaster is our inexpensive, open source JTAG debugger based on the FTDI FT2232H USB->serial chip. Bus Blaster v4 adds a support for a new type of […]
Texas Instruments changes outrageous contest rules
A few days ago we wrote about Texas Instruments’ crazy contest rules. Participants have to hand over everything to enter, including ‘enjoyment’ of the project. TI noticed and updated the rules. From the comments: Thanks for bringing this to our notice. The terms and conditions in question have been corrected. The contest in question does […]
Workshop video #03: Bus Blaster JTAG debugger history
In this video Texas Instruments gets the Big Box award, and we discuss the evolution of the Bus Blaster JTAG debugger. The Bus Blaster is our inexpensive, open source JTAG debugger based on the FTDI FT2232H UBS->serial chip. This chip has 2 JTAG interfaces and can program/debug two separate JTAG targets. Bus Blaster v1 used […]
Anti SOPA and PIPA: Your failed business model is not our problem
Another day, another industry with a failed business model wants to break the internet to survive. Yawn. Lots of sites are going black today to protest plans for American internet censorship under SOPA and PIPA. We’re going to respond with mocking. This legislative silliness will continue until the final nail is banged into the coffin […]
Cheap 2X16 red/black LCD tests
We got our hands on a few cheap 2×16 red/black LCDs of eBay for $5 a piece, these are the same LCDs from the unboxing video. In preparation to build the soldering iron driver, we tested them out with the Bus Pirate LCD adapter and the USB LCD Backpack. Initially we were worried that the […]