The Bus Pirate prototype “Ultra” v1b has a 10 pin 1.25mm connector for a display daughterboard. We wanted a more dynamic way to keep track of the pinout and other handy information like pin states and voltage levels. There are various reference stickers and labeled probe cables for the Bus Pirate v3 and v4, but […]
Author Archives: Ian
BUS PIRATE: Love the USB C connector!
Bus Pirate prototype Ultra v1b uses a common, cheap USB C connector and we are in love! Micro B connectors are a nightmare. Very inconsistent footprints, poor materials and build quality, and very weak mounting supports. Often the leads are hidden under the housing and conceal pesky shorts. Almost every Micro B connector we hand […]
PROTOTYPE: Bus Pirate “Ultra” v1b
Today we finished stuffing the first Bus Pirate “Ultra” v1b board. This includes the updates we posted this week, and a few other improvements from v1a: 8 general purpose IO pins 0.8-5.0volt programmable power supply Voltage measurement on all 8 IO pins Pull-up resistors on all pins, fed from Vout/Vref pin Display connector USB C […]
Bus Pirate: Reclaiming the Vpullup pin
The Bus Pirate Vpullup pin supplies a voltage to the on-board pull-up resistors. In the “Ultra” hardware it also powers the external half of the bi-directional IO buffer. MOSI CLOCK MISO CS AUX AUX2 (formerly ADC) Vpullup AUX4 (formerly 3.3Volts) 0.8-5.0Vout (formerly 5.0Volts) GND So far we’ve added voltage measurement to every IO pin and […]
BUS PIRATE: 0.8-5.0volt programmable output power supply
MOSI CLOCK MISO CS AUX AUX2 (formerly ADC) Vpu 3.3V 5.0V GND After adding buffered voltage measurements to every IO pin, we eliminated the dedicated ADC pin and turned it into a general purpose IO (AUX2). Now we’re going to take a hatchet to the on-board voltage regulators (3.3V, 5.0V) and replace them with a […]
BUS PIRATE: Voltage measurement on every pin
Bus Pirate Ultra v1a follows the same pinout as previous Bus Pirates. 5 I/O pins (MOSI, CLOCK, MISO, CS, AUX), a voltage probe (ADC), a voltage source for the on-board pull-up resistors (Vpu), two power supplies (3.3, 5.0volts) and ground. While we were building the prototype it became obvious that a few tweaks could make […]
PROTOTYPE: Bus Pirate/Logic Analyzer with Ice40 FPGA
Bus Pirate “Ultra” taps an iCE40 FPGA to power a combined Bus Pirate interface and logic analyzer that is infinity hackable. Previous Bus Pirates relied on the hardware peripherals available in a microcontroller, which vary in features and have the occasional bug. With an FPGA we can implement practically any peripheral with all the fixes […]
Shenzhen to Hong Kong on High Speed Rail
Even though Shenzhen and Hong Kong are basically the same city on opposite sides of a border, it’s still a frustratingly long trip to Hong Kong Central for a Reuben at Morty’s Deli. The new high speed rail line linking downtown Shenzhen to downtown Hong Kong makes the trip in just 15 minutes. A lot […]
DIRTY CABLES: a new cable editor
DirtyCables.com has a live preview of a new custom cable builder. This is a from-scratch rewrite of the editor at DirtyPCBs with new features based on your requests: Isometric connector drawings with pin numbers save a trip to the datasheet Improved connector selector with room for additional info One to many “Y” connections. Same connector […]
BUS PIRATE: USB Micro B connector test
USB Micro B is the connector of the moment, but we haven’t had a very good time working with it. The bog-standard Chinese generic Micro B connectors on Bus Pirate v5 and Bus Pirate NG1 break constantly. We tested a Micro B connector with through-hole support tabs on the latest Bus Pirate PCBs. It turned […]
Trying a quick turn hand-assembly prototype service
These Bus Pirate v5 prototypes were hand-assembled by a random PCBA shop on Taobao. Assembly took two days and cost 80RMB (~$12) for each board, we provided the PCBs and components. Normally we relish a prototype build because it’s a source of so many design improvements, but this was an emergency. The USB Micro B […]
BusPirate.com: Compile PIC and ARM firmware on a cheap server
The Bus Pirate project currently has four firmware builds (v3/v4/v5/vNG1) under two toolchains (PIC C/ARM C). To make this more manageable, we use a cheap VPS to check for new code in our git repo and compile the firmware automatically. Fresh compiles are available for everyone immediately, without any intervention from developers or friendly forum […]
BusPirate.com: Automated documentation updates
Up-to-date documentation makes a project easy to learn about, but its a really boring job that takes a lot of time. Even great documentation eventually has outdated examples and screenshots that don’t quite match the latest version. BusPirate.com has a hacked together toolchain to keep the documentation fresh. It’s a three part process: Test scripts […]
BusPirate.com: A dedicated website for docs, firmware, tutorials
Bus Pirate documentation and demos are all buried in a huge wiki and around the blog, this is less than ideal for such an expansive project. We’ve been working on a new site just for Bus Pirate stuff. This site is full of hacks that automate boring development stuff. Documentation and tutorials are updated through […]
PROTOTYPE: Bus Pirate Next Gen v1
Sjaak, fresh off his ARM adventures at SMDprutser, hacked together an STM32-based Bus Pirate prototype we’ve been calling NG1 (Next Gen version 1). NG1 uses a modern ARM chip with completely open tools and libraries, and sports an integrated logic analyzer . The firmware is very usable, but largely untested. Let’s have a look at […]
Updated Bus Pirate v3.x concept design
Development on DirtyPCBs.com is winding down, so I’ve had some time to play with hardware. I’ve said the same thing for a few years now, but this time it really happened! This update of Bus Pirate v3.x crams in a major new feature, and slightly lowers the total cost. Two China-sourced analog switches enable […]
Taobao breakout boards are a mess part 2
Last week we struggled with mislabeled and faulty breakout boards from Taobao. Fortunately purchases from Shenzhen sellers usually arrive the next day, so we’ve already got a bunch of replacement boards to test. HMC5883L/QMC5883 digital compass Last week our HMC5883L breakout turned out to have a non-compatible QMC5883 chip. We need the genuine part to do […]
Breakout boards from Taobao are a mess
For the last few days I’ve been playing with breakout boards purchased from Taobao. So far it’s been a nightmare. GY-271 is advertised as a Honeywell HMC5883L 3 axis digital compass. A Bus Pirate address search turned up 0x1A and 0x1B, instead of the HMC5883L’s 0x3C and 0x3D. The chip is actually a “Q”MC5883L, a […]
Dirty terminal sample pack
Crimp Terminals for Cables Crimp terminals lock to the end of a wire and attach to an electrical connection such as a screw or terminal block. There are tons of different styles out there, but we found a handful that every Chinese cable manufacturer stocks. This is important because while reels of crimps are cheap, […]
Dirty Cables price increases and lead times
Its really hard to convince Huaqiangbei market suppliers to cooperate on a project until you can prove value by making a bunch of orders. Our approach is to guestimate a price at DirtyPCBs, send through a few months of orders, and then ask if they’d like to cooperate with us. Generally this will open doors […]