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, […]
Author Archives: Ian
Week in (p)review: September 30, 2011
Facebook free PCB Friday is on the way. Don’t forget to share your current project in the comments or the forum. Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week: A DIY version of Bus Pirate 3.5-SOIC is now on sale in the free PCB drawer 7400 competition entries: Pure TTL clock, Sychnometro Hz, […]
CPLD development boards back in stock
CoolRunner-II XC2C64A CPLD development boards are back in stock at Seeed Studio. Get the CoolRunner-II development board for $15 and XC9572XL dev-board for $15.
Pololu crimping tool review
mwilson shared a low-cost ratchet tool: Now I’m using a pretty good low-cost ratchet tool from Pololu. Once in a while the crimp over the insulation will come out a tad too “fat” to fit in some plastic connector housing, and I have to compress it a bit with pliers. That’s the only drawback I’ve […]
TMP103 and TMP006 evaluation kit winners
Today we announce the winners of the TMP103 and TMP006 evaluation kits. There were lots of great suggestions, thanks for your submissions. Congratulations to Benny Boy, his idea for the TMP006: Beekeepers can use infrared thermometers to locate (roughly, see www.beesource.com/forums) where a colony in a wall has built. Would be nice to hook the […]
Flash Destroyer free PCB build
znanev built a free Flash Destroyer PCB. After 13 days elapsed, the counter was still ticking and the EEPROM survived over 7 million writes. I wanted to capture the precious moment of the display showing all 7s, but again I had no luck…After 19 days since the start, I found the poor EEPROM had died… […]
SerialCouple thermocouple adapter v1
Kenneth Finnegan has been working on thermocouple adapter called SerialCouple: The SerialCouple line of boards are simple, easy to use single-channel thermocouple adapters, meant to be an interface between a thermocouple and a computer or other embedded system. Shown in the pictures are the model one boards, which are meant to be plugged into FTDI-like […]
7400 competition entry: Pure TTL clock
Here’s an entry in the Open 7400 Logic competition: Pure TTL clock A 24 hour clock built entirely out of TTL gates. The time base is a 32.768kHz quartz crystal.
STM32L discovery kit Linux programmer patch
From the comments on our STM32L Discovery and ULINK2 post: A few days ago, a friend gave me a stm32l discovery kit As in the stm32vl kit, there is an embedded stlink. However, this is the version 2, and the linux stlink programming tool is not working. After some checks, one of the reason is […]
Xilinx vs. Altera tools for hobbyists
Big Mess o’ Wires compared Xilinx and Altera’s FPGA tools: I used to believe that Altera’s FPGA tools were much more hobbyist-friendly than the comparable Xilinx tools, and I frequently bashed the Xilinx tools whenever the topic came up. But after giving them a head-to-head comparison recently, I think I may have to eat my […]
TMP103 I2C temperature sensor test
TI’s TMP103 is a temperature sensor with 1 degree accuracy from -10 to +100 degrees Celsius. The two-wire I2C interface has some special sauce so you can address them all at once, instead of repeating commands to each. Today we’ll take a quick look at the evaluation module for this chip. You can win this […]
7400 competition entry: Sychnometro Hz
Here’s an entry in the Open 7400 Logic competition: Sychnometro Hz by DolceVii
Another Bus Pirate case
CapacitiveMind made a DIY Bus Pirate case: First Print is complete. A bit more post processing would make for a very nice case. I don’t have a Bus Pirate to show the fit of the board, but the case design prints very easily. More awesome DIY cases. Via the forum. Get your own handy Bus […]
7400 competition entry: Capacitive Sensing, the Hard Way
Here’s an entry in the Open 7400 Logic competition: Capacitive Sensing, the Hard Way – 16 Channel Capacitive Sensor, RS232 Out
Partlist Wednesday: Tantalum capacitors
Every Wednesday we highlight a component from the updated Dangerous Prototypes partlist. This week: tantalum capacitors. We use tantalum capacitors sparingly, usually only when a datasheet specifies. The element tantalum is a conflict mineral, and it’s expensive. For example the PICs on the Logic Sniffer and Bus Pirate have an internal voltage regulator that specifically […]
Bus Pirate v4 PCB built
TitanMKD posted picture of his Bus Pirate v4 PCB built. Via the forum. Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
TMP006 infrared temperature sensor test
Today we did a quick test of the TMP006 infrared non-contact temperature sensor with an I2C interface. Point it at something and it measures the temperature. We were expecting a simple breakout board we could test with the Bus Pirate, but got full USB-enabled evaluation kits. To use the Bus Pirate with this board check […]
Bus Pirate Wii Nunchuck interface demo in Italian
settorezero interfaced a Wii Nunchuck using the Bus Pirate, article in Italian. For an English demo check here. Via Twitter.
MSP430 LED Matrix Toy
Markus Gritsch posted his MSP430 LED Matrix toy in the project log forum: I just did a quick little project using an MSP430 and two 595 shift registers to drive a small LED matrix display, suitable for beginners. Two push buttons are used as inputs and a buzzer is connected to a timer output to […]
GIVEAWAY: TMP103 and TMP006 evaluation modules
Texas Instruments‘ PR boffins sent us TMP103 (I2C 12bit temperature sensor) and TMP006 (I2C infrared temperature sensor) evaluation modules to give away. We accepted these samples to followup on two Bus Pirate demos: Anthony’s demo of the TMP102 temperature sensor, and Joe’s demo of the TMP006. We expected a chip on a breakout board, instead […]