McZ and rsdio tipped us to a bunch of new and wonderful voltage regulator chips. Tiny regulators, high current regulators, and high voltage regulators. TPS84620: 4.5V to 14.5V input, 6A switching regulator needs only three external parts MAX15040: 2.4V to 3.6V input, 4A switching regulator is the smallest yet MAX15050/MAX15051: 2.9V to 5.5V input, 4A […]
Author Archives: Ian
MAX3421E USB peripheral/host controller with SPI interface
MichaelZ writes: While poking around SparkFun’s website I found USB Host Shield which is only marginally interesting unless you are an Arduino fan. But the USB host controller chip is interesting. The MAX3421E is a USB Peripheral/Host Controller with SPI Interface. This is an alternate to the FTDI VNC USB host controllers. It has only […]
High temperature floating point digital signal controller
McZ writes: I have used the SM320F28335-HT microcontroller in several projects including military applications. With the floating point it is blinding fast. The standard temperature comes in a QFP and the high temp version comes in a Ceramic Pin Grid Array which is more friendly than the BGA’s. The TI compiler/IDE is cheap by high […]
Week in (p)review: March 25, 2011
Don’t forget to share your current project in the comments or the forum. This week our favorite project gets a free QFP protoboard. Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week: Bus Blaster v2 was featured in this week’s status update post, the hardware is being tested now and the documentation is mostly […]
Quirks of PCB manufacturing at ITead
Itead posts a reaction to EEVblog’s list of PCB manufacturing quirks: Now we remake the boards again with the same gerber file. Today the boards return, we can not wait to start checking the board, and the result make us very disappointed – the factory seems change the gerber again and the boards still not […]
Reflow oven controller update
robots updated his reflow over controller, source code is now available in github. Next up – install the electronics. Via the project log forum.
Easy toner transfer PCBs with hacked laminator
When you make PCBs with the toner transfer method, you have to spend around 10 minutes per board sweating over a hot clothes iron while the toner melts to the PCB. Ahmad Tabbouch though a laminator might be an easier solution, but the default temperature is too low. This tutorial shows how to hack a […]
Update from TI on earthquake damage to factories in Japan
rsdio writes: Everyone on the web – and even on the street! – is talking about Japan’s multiple disasters. Here is some news from the technical front: After a preliminary assessment, Texas Instruments … today said its manufacturing site in Miho, Japan, about 40 miles northeast of Tokyo, suffered substantial damage during last Friday’s 8.9 […]
Bus Pirate breakout v0.1
Schazamp debuted a Bus Pirate breakout board, files available at github: My new Bus Pirate is great, but it’s kind of a pain to use the 10-pin cable and test clips to hook onto small components, and trying to find room for the Vpu pin alongside Vcc drove me to innovate. So I made this […]
TOOLS: Flatbed scanner for PCBs, sketches, bookkeeping
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! A cheap flatbed scanner is super useful in the shop. We use it to post design sketches, scan PCBs, and archive receipts. You might remember that Free PCB […]
Omnidirectional remote controlled robot
Markus shared his Omnidirectional remote controlled robot in the project log forum: Recently, I got interested in omni wheels, so I built this little robot. The robot has three pairs of omni wheels. I covered each roll of the omni wheels with liquid rubber (plastidip) to get better traction. I bought the cheapest servos I […]
Serial ports under VMware with Socat
VMware API on Windows supports serial ports, but the guest doesn’ implement them without additional configuration. Aurimas wrote a guide to installing Socat, a utility that helps with serial communication between host OS and guest OS, and even creates a serial to TCP Bridge. Via the Contact form.
DIY Bus Pirate v3b and v4
canghaiwuhen shares this picture of a hand-made Bus Pirate v3b, with a Bus Pirate v4 sitting in the wings. Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
Lampduino 8×8 RGB matrix floor lamp
Lincomatic documented his Lampduino, an 8×8 RGB Matrix Floor lamp build. This past weekend, I finally finished building my 8×8 RGB matrix floor lamp. I call it Lampduino. A Processing sketch running on a host computer controls Lampduino via a USB connection. When turned on without a computer, it automatically displays a soothing plasma simulation. […]
FEZ Mini .NET ARM development board
TinyCLR is the newest designer to release a project through Seeed Studio: FEZ Mini is a tiny board running Microsoft .NET Micro Framework. This means you can write code with much more efficiency using the C# programming language under free Microsoft Visual C# express. The pinout is BasicStamp2 compatible. Includes USB cable. Many libraries are […]
mbed base station
frank26080115 shared his own open source mbed base station design in the project log forum: Does anybody here use the mbed? I got one recently and it’s really great for trying out ARM. The DRM on it is pretty bad though, and the online compiler isn’t the greatest. However you can till build binaries using […]
STATUS UPDATE: Bus Blaster v2
We’re trying a new Monday post with status updates on new projects currently in production. This will cover project development, and gritty details like last minutes changes and production problems. Bus Blaster v2 is going to rock! The design is so flexible and fun, we can’t believe it wasn’t the standard FT2232 JTAG debugger design […]
Logic Sniffer: Updated VHDL core
kinsa posted an update of the VHDL core for the Logic Sniffer. Via the forum.
Flexible PCB, self-adhesive, component adapters
Protoflex is a set of flexible circuit board stickers for SMD development. Peel off a footprint, stick it on 0.1″ protoboard, and solder surface mount parts directly on the sticker. Brilliant use of flexible PCBs. Thanks Kelvin! Via contact form.
Free PCB Sunday: xQFP breakouts
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 we’re giving away two […]