The USB Infrared Toy is back in stock for $20, including worldwide shipping. Orders should ship immediately. The Bus Pirate is on back order, but v3b should be tested and shipping soon.
Author Archives: Ian
Web platform: uIP TCP/IP stack working
A few months ago we started a port of the uIP TCP/IP stack for the dsPIC33-based web platform. Bonybrown picked up the source and got it working. The current version can accept 10 simultaneous telnet connections, and has ping times of 0.68ms: Next steps I’d like to try are to replace the polling loop with […]
Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v3b
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 week we’re giving away two Bus Pirate v3b PCBs. v3b is a minor update […]
Microchip demo pages on web platform
Trev spent a lot of time hacking and documenting the Microchip TCP/IP stack for the web platform. Trev’s extensive write-up shows how he got these features working: SMTP mail client, email demo HTTP authentication, adding authentication to the email demo MD5 hash demo HTTP2 demo, multiple HTTP connections Custom dynamic web pages More in the […]
USB Infrared Toy firmware v1.02
There’s a new firmware, hardware, and source archive for the USB Infrared Toy available for download here. This release includes a very minor firmware update, there’s no real compelling reason to upgrade: USB device descriptor properly reports bus-powered device Removed padding from manufacturer string in descriptor Increased delay before and after self-test Updated self-test version […]
Prototype: Bus Pirate v3b
The next batch of Bus Pirates will be the ‘b’ revision of the v3 hardware. V3b has the same functions, size, and shape of v3a, and it takes the same firmware. We just made a few minor updates based on our experience manufacturing the v3a over the last few months. Our prototype is green, but […]
Bus Pirate ‘new terminal’ test release
Sjaak is working on a branch of the Bus Pirate firmware known as ‘newterm‘ because it contains a new terminal interface. It’s ready for an alpha release (download here), and we’d like to invite curious testers to take the new firmware for a spin. Newterm is only compatible with the v4 bootloader using pirate-loader or […]
Logic Sniffer probe cable update
Seeed Studio now has $6 Logic Sniffer probe cables available for back order. Each cable is a 1×9 connector with nine tweezer-style connectors. Don’t forget that you need two cables to connect to all 16 buffered channels on the OLS. The Logic Sniffer is now on back order too, the next batch will ship in […]
Logic Sniffer quick start video
Openbench 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. Logic Sniffers are starting to arrive worldwide, and the Gadget Factory has a quick start video to get you going […]
Understanding seven segment displays
John Park at Make has a really nice introduction to 7-segment LED displays and reverse engineering. He maps the relationship between bits in a byte and each LED segment connected to an SAA106 driver. This is a real-world introduction to the tedious art of poking at hardware to reverse engineer a circuit.
Bus Pirate PIC24F programmer
This post is an overview of a test app that uses the Bus Pirate’s binary rawwire mode to program another Bus Pirate. This could be a handy way to unbrick one Bus Pirate with another. Eventually, we’d like it to program all PICs that don’t require a 13volt programming voltage (18FJ/FK, 24F, 30F, and 33F). […]
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 […]
USB Performance Monitor
We like the professional look of this USB PIC (18F2550) project from WaitingForFriday. Analog VU meters and an RGB LED show system stats like CPU use, network speed, and hard disk activity. The PIC enumerates as a driver-less USB HID device with a firmware based on the Microchip USB stack. via Hackaday
Bus Pirate availability
Seeed is currently out of stock of the Bus Pirate v3. The next batch should start shipping in a week or two. In the mean time, you can should soon be able to place a back order with Seeed, or pick up a Bus Pirate (and probe cable) at Adafruit. The next batch of Bus Pirates […]
Open Programmer v0.7.x
Alberto Maccioni designed this multi-chip opensource programmer based on a PIC18F2550. Currently it supports PIC, I2C-SPI-MicroWire EEPROMs, some ATMEL AVRs, and (soon) other devices. It even supports some PIC 24Fs, like the 24Fj64GA002 used on the Bus Pirate. In the last few years, as serial and parallel interfaces have almost disappeared, electronics enthusiasts find even […]
PICkit I2C and SPI demo boards
Darren pointed out two IC demonstration boards from Microchip. The PICKit Serial I2C demo board has five unique devices with I2C interfaces. It includes a 2Kbit serial EEPROM, high accuracy temperature sensor, 12-bit ADC, 10-bit DAC, and an 8-bit IO expander – all great chips for a new hardware hacker. Debugging is possible through test […]
Bus Pirate: CAN Pirate
Unlike simple serial protocols, Controller Area Network (CAN) transmits data in frames with error detection capabilities. The Bus Pirate wasn’t designed to handle frame-based data transmissions, but have no fear the CAN Pirate adapter is here! In order to send and sniff CAN data for debugging an application, Stefano came up with the CAN Pirate. […]
IR remote codes overview
Ken Shirriff’s infrared remote control overview covers different ways to interpret remote control codes, and how to extract codes from various data files available online. This could be good background for anyone adding new remote control protocol support to the USB IR Toy.
Experience with the Bus Pirate
Dom shares his impressions of the Bus Pirate as a prototyping and test tool: OK I don’t say it often but the Bus Pirate is a superb piece of kit. The vast bulk of my work is design work with a wide range of IC’s and embedded devices, for this I spend a large amount […]
USB IR Toy: Calculate transmitter carrier frequency
See the latest version in the documentation wiki. The USB IR Toy raw IO mode samples and replays infrared waveforms. IRIO mode starts with a default 36kHz infrared transmit modulation frequency. The rate can be changed with the setup modulation command (0×02), followed by a byte that sets the pulse-width modulator match value (PR2), and […]