Ronan writes about a new Bus Pirate GUI he’s working on: Hi. I’m reading about your “One Bus Pirate programs another” idea. Curiously enough, I had a pretty close idea to that. Instead of just programming another PIC, I wrote a frontend to Bus Pirate’s basic commands. Right now, I’m working on implementing a plugin […]
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 […]
Logic Sniffer probes available next week
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. We’ve got a long-awaited update on probe cables for the Open Logic Sniffer. Word from Seeed is that they should […]
PIC based digital LC meter
Sometimes we need to measure inductance and capacitance, but why buy a tool when you can build it? Phil Rice designed this LC meter with a PIC16F628, 16×1 LCD display, and some passive components. You might be able to build this with components you already have.
Bus Pirate OpenOCD walk-through
Jrt posted some notes about using the Bus Pirate with OpenOCD: It does work – but it’s not slick or fast. If you want a cheap JTAG adapter for remote debugging or big flash writes, get an FTDI-2232 based one. But, it’ll be fine for fiddling with bootloaders or just interrogating hardware. We agree that […]
USB IR Toy: Calculate sampling rates
See the latest version on the documentation wiki. The USB IR Toy raw IO mode samples and replays infrared waveforms. IRIO mode starts with a default 10kHz sample and playback timer. The rate can be changed with the setup timer command (0x01), followed by two bytes that set the sample timer offset. The first byte […]
Open Logic Sniffer shipping
Seeed has started sending shipment notifications for the Open Logic Sniffer. Now the hard part, waiting for the mail. Let us know how your OLS unboxing goes, share your experience in the forum. There are a few OLS units left from the first batch. You can pick one up at Seeed for $45, including worldwide […]
Feet for Ril3y’s Bus Pirate case
RatRanch found a good accessory for Ril3y’s laser-cut Bus Pirate case: I made some very effective non-slip “feet” for the bottom using tine covers left over from a dishwasher repair kit that I obtained from an Amazon seller for about US $5 with shipping. I’d imagine that similar parts could be found in any well […]
Arduino implemented on FPGA
The Gadget Factory, our partner on the Open Logic Sniffer, implemented the Arduino using an FPGA. It’s based on the AVR8 soft processor Jack developed previously for the Butterfly Platform. The Butterfly Platform is a rapid prototyping board that gets you going on FPGA projects in no time, and now you can implement things in […]
Pinguino: a PIC Arduino
Pinguino is an Arduino-like board based on PIC microcontroller. The hardware is based on a PIC 18F2550, which has an integrated USB module. This is the same chip we used in the USB IR Toy. The IDE is built with Python. An integrated preprocessor translates Arduino specific instructions directly to C. It uses SDCC as […]
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 […]
One Bus Pirate programs another?
Can one Bus Pirate program another? Not yet, but we’ve been hard at work on it. This post is about a new application, available here, that will program PIC 24Fs from the Bus Pirate. Everything looks great on a logic analyzer, but it’s not working yet. Maybe you can help us figure it out, and […]
Open Logic Sniffer assembled, in testing
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. The Open Logic Sniffer returned from the factory. It will be programmed and tested soon. Seeed makes the rather ambitious […]
#twatch Winamp plugin
yvesp123 has been hard at work on a WinAmp plugin that supports the #twatch ethernet LCD: For me, the main reason for getting a #twatch in the first place was to display the currently playing song info from WinAmp. Since I received it, I’ve been working on a native plug-in for WinAmp. So here it […]
Printable Bus Pirate v2go case
We’ve seen a lot of Bus Pirate housings: mint tins, shrink tube, development boards, and laser cut acrylic. Now we can add a 3D-printed case to the list. Gatsu printed a Bus Pirate v2go case with a Makerbot. You can download the public domain design files at Thingiverse. Thanks to LeissKG for the tip!
Synthetos laser cut Bus Pirate case
teslafreak posted this picture of Ril3y’s laser cut case for the Bus Pirate in the forum: I bought two of these, a black one and a clear one. They recently arrived, and look great. The construction is fantastic. They are also possible to take apart without tools, which is awesome. Here’s a pic (though my […]
Program your AVR with PICkit2
PK2AVRISP is software that lets a PICkit2 program AVR microcontrollers with no hardware or firmware changes. It decodes commands sent to a virtual serial port that emulates an AVR ISP programmer, and translates them to Pickit2 commands. It’s compatible with existing AVR development apps like AVRStudio, AVRDude, and CodeVision AVR.
USB Infrared Toy self-test
The latest version of this article is now on the documentation wiki. The USB Infrared Toy contains a self-test that’s not documented in the original how-to. The self-test is used to detect dead hardware after manufacturing. To use the self-test, open a terminal program to the USB IR Toy’s serial port and type ‘t’ or […]
USB IR Toy preorder 1 defect
Unfortunately there’s a defect in the first batch of USB IR Toys. The infrared LED is backwards and does not emit properly. Ytsirk caught this defect and documented the issue in the forum.We’re really sorry about this bug, and we’ve done our best to track it and identify the cause. We used a Cadsoft Eagle […]
MMC/SD/SDHC card library
Hidden away in SparkFun’s AD5330 demo is an open source FAT SD card read/write library from Roland Riegel. The MMC/SD/SDHC card library is intended for AVR microcontrollers, and it supports FAT16 and FAT32, partition tables, and low-level read/write operations. The source download includes an example application. This project should be pretty easy to port to […]