cam0 pried open a laundry smartcard and found an unprotected SPI EEPROM chip. He googled the part number and found a datasheet that describes the chip protocol, then dumped the data with a Bus Pirate. He found the card balance by comparing the contents before and after a load of laundry, the value was stored […]
Author Archives: Ian
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. Someone made some minor modifications to […]
Week in (p)review: July 4, 2010
Here’s some highlights from the past week, in case you missed them: Bus Pirate firmware v5.1 was released. v5.0 was a major update with lots of changes, v5.1 corrects some bugs we missed in beta testing. Logic Sniffer test release v2.11 extends the memory available for samples and implements RLE for 8 and 16bit modes. […]
Documentation wiki now available
A new documentation wiki has replaced the old project manual pages. A bunch of stuff has already been moved and formatted for the wiki. The wiki is open for public editing. We could use your help moving and updating guides, and adding important details from the blog comments. If you move something from the blog […]
Bus Pirate firmware v5.1
Bus Pirate firmware v5.1 is a bug fix release. The version 5 firmware branch, formerly known by codename newterm, was first released last week. You found a number of bugs so we rolled the fixes into a new version: Fixed OpenOCD support in v5 Fixed output mode adjust bug Added v3a/v3b detection Updated SPI sniffer […]
Open source logic analyzer software
We woke up in a strange world where everyone knew about a new logic analyzer frontend for the Logic Sniffer, except us. LogicAnalyzer is a framework as well as an application to operate a PC based logic analyzer. It’s built using the Eclipse RCP and designed with extensibiliy in mind. Integrating devices, providing tools or […]
Actual values of 10% tolerance resistors
Resistors and other electronic parts are rated to be within a certain percent of the specified value. A 1000 ohm resistor with a ±10% tolerance could have an actual value between 900 and 1100 ohms. So what’s the actual range of values in a bunch of resistors? Due to manufacturing techniques, it might not be […]
Logic Sniffer test release 2.11
The Logic Sniffer is an open source logic analyzer. It’s designed to support the SUMP logic analyzer software at the lowest possible cost. This project is a collaboration between the Gadget Factory and Dangerous Prototypes. Jack posted Logic Sniffer bitstream test release 2.11 with bigger samples and RLE improvements: Extends memory depths from 8k and […]
USB Infrared Toy, web platform back in stock
The USB IR Toy is back in stock at Seeed Studio. Back orders will ship now, and new orders should ship immediately. The latest batch of USB IR Toys has a few minor updates: The IR LED footprint was swapped for a correct version. A plain IR LED instead of the metal-can version. The IR […]
Occasional outages
The site and forum are up and down right now. It looks like a database server problem. Laughing Squid, our fantastic host, will probably have it fixed shortly. We’ll wait until tomorrow to install the wiki… Update: we appear to be back now.
Seeeduino Film, a flexible Arduino board
Seeed Studio might have made the world’s first flexible Arduino. This is just a prototype with a lot of work left to be done, but it looks like Seeed is giving a few away to testers.
Breadboard power supply roundup
Breadboards are a fast and easy way to prototype a circuit, and just about every hobby electronics biz has a power supply that’s supposed to fit a breadboard. IPenguin compared the designs from Seeed Studio, Adafruit Industries, and SparkFun. What’s features are on your ideal breadboard power supply?
Commodore 64 sound emulation with PIC32MX
A few days ago we asked about open source projects you’ve tailored to suit your own needs. Markus writes: I don’t know if it counts, but my story is this: There is this PIC32MX open hardware board named CUI32 for which I managed to get some SID (Commodore 64 sound chip) emulation code to compile […]
Week in (p)review: June 27, 2010
Last week was full of firmware updates. Here’s some highlights, in case you missed them: Bus Pirate firmware v5 was released. There were a few bug reports, a v5.1 update will probably be released this week. Go north, but don’t fall off the edge. Another release for the Bus Pirate: bootloader v4.3 with a few […]
Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate demo board
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. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week we’re giving away […]
DIY USB IR Toy clone
Here’s a DIY, potrable version of the USB IR Toy. It runs the same firmware and bootloader as the IR Toy, but has a few changes: smaller than the original USB IR Toy full integration in a tiny case four IR LEDs for increased range it can be powered with a 9V battery, making it […]
Power supply connector paper clip hack
Gerard sent a tip for connecting multiple cables to a bench power supply: Here is a simple hack which will allow you to connect, wrap , group quite a few power cables in parallel… and all you need is a paper clip.
Universal PIC programming adapter
Development of the Bus Pirate PIC programmer involves testing a bunch of different chips. This $10 universal programming adapter from Sure Electronics will be really handy. This board doesn’t actually program any chips. It’s an adapter that accepts a lot of different 18-40pin PIC chips and connects the programming pins to a header. The ZIF […]
Bus Pirate: Bootloader v4.3/v4.4 upgrade
See the latest version in the documentation wiki. Bus Pirate developers have been using an updated v4 bootloader for several months. It’s tested really well, so we packaged it in an installer. Bootloader v4.3/v4.4 is a minor update of v4.1/4.2. It is not a required update. Any v4+ firmware will work with any v4+ bootloader. […]
LaunchPad MSP430 development board
Texas Instruments is putting out a $4.30 development platform for the 16bit MSP430 microcontroller. The LaunchPad is aimed at beginners and hobbyists. It accepts several different through-hole chips from the MSP430 value line. We like to use the MSP430 in simple low power designs, but the 4K and 8K size limits on the compiler can […]