We designed a microcontroller board for a power supply, but somehow we forgot to add the oscillator to the circuit. We thought it was enough to add two nets called ‘OSC1’ and ‘OSC2’ to the schematic… Why can’t Eagle cope with that automatically?! The lovely photo was taken with an A5000, an Android-based clone of […]
Author Archives: Sjaak
Buspirate issues solved?
Recently the forum is flooded with people that are experiencing troubles with the Buspirate v3.6. Pieter in the forum was no exception. He first tried the Buspirate on his Windows 8.1 and Vista machine and went to the forum after finding out hise buspirate didn’t respond to anything. The supportteam in the forum suspected the PIC was not programmed or […]
Downloadable ShenZhen map for makers
We are a great fan of Shenzhen and love the wandering round the vast partmarkets of Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen. Ian even decided to leave the cold and windy Netherlands and settle in the Shenzhen area. Two years ago we start our first steps in Huaqiangbei during our first geek tour of Shenzhen, but now we are veterans and know […]
Testing the new reduced-sized ICSP connector
This week we received a batch of PCBs and amongst them was the latest revision of our USB TFT breakoutboard. This board is the first board that features a new ICSP footprint, which occupies less space on the PCB and should improve testing and programming times at Seeed.
Shopping TaoBao: Our first steps
Some time ago a forum member brought up Taobao as a cheap alternative to eBay. Since we like to shop on a budget, we decided to give it a go. Shopping on Taobao is not as easy as shopping on eBay, and consists of more steps between ordering, and receiving the item.
NEW PROTOTYPE: 1.8″ TFT display with USB interface
Like so many others, we found a nice 1.8″ TFT display in China, and we decided to make a breakout for it. Instead of just breaking out the pins, and perhaps adding the micro SD card holder, we equipped our version with an USB enabled microcontroller and a few buttons for GUI projects. This display […]
Global Geek Shenzhen: Custom USB flash drives
Shenzhen is well known for locally produced and customized technology. From custom cell phones to personalized push buttons, you can find it in Hua Qiang Bei. Sjaak found a building that consists entirely of USB flash disk sellers. There’s a huge selection of colorful silicone housing. Just pick one and the dealer pops a 4 […]
Global Geek Shenzhen: How not to get lost in the candy store
The SEG Market in Shenzhen, and the other markets too, are a maze packed with lots of small shops and goodies. It’s hard to find that shop with a special bargain again after you wander away. Below the fold are some tips for finding your way around the markets.
Global Geek Shenzhen: USB microscope
We all bought one of these USB microscope at the SEG Market. We were immediately fond of the heavy base and the smooth adjustment of the camera. We bargained a bit and bought it for 260 RMB ($40), that’s half the cost of the same thing on eBay from another China seller. Some example shots […]
Maker Faire badges
What all maker faires have in common is that the local hackerspace(s) come up with some kind of badge with a coincell and a blinking LED. In China things aren’t much different and we did see a few. This one could be bought as a kit at the Maker Faire for about 10 RMB (1.50 […]
Our big box of traveling parts is in the wild
We are constantly developing prototypes, so we end up with a large pile of unused components. When we moved to a new location we realized some components sat untouched since the previous move. A while ago we read about the The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk and decided this was a perfect way […]
PROTOTYPE PREVIEW: New protoboard under way
Don’t you hate it? A big bag of SMT parts arrive from Mouser, DigiKey or eBay, but your carefully manufactured PCBs are still under way? Or the firmware needs to be done ASAP? Or you got this super cool USB SOIC uC you’d love to try out and you can’t wait? We run into this […]
Sjaak’s shop-a-holic trip to Akihabara Electric Town
Sjaak stayed a little bit longer in Tokyo and had more time to score some nice parts. As we already said the big plus of shopping in Akihabara is you can actually touch the stuff, but it also has a major downside – you buy too much stuff… Please continue reading about our shop-a-holic trip to […]
Itead mystery gift arrives
Several weeks ago we posted about an X-Mas giveaway from Iteadstudio. We were surprised to see that it arrived during our stay in Tokyo! As it was shipped like a regular letter, we suspect it blasted past bigger parcels and slipped through quite easily. If you’re still waiting for it, and don’t want to know what’s […]
Itead Studio OpenPCB service: In search of OS PCB part 2
Yesterday we tracked down the designers of two random open source PCBs we received from Itead’s OpenPCB service. Today we look at two more PCBs: a reprap board, and one of our own. Itead has a PCB exchange option when you order boards. For 10 cents extra you get 2 different open source PCBs from […]
ITead Studio OpenPCB service: In search of OS PCBs part 1
Some time ago we reported on Itead’s OpenPCB Service. They offer basic PCB prototyping of 10pcs 5x5cm PCB for $9.90 and 10pcs of 10x10cm for $24.90. For 10 cents extra you can participate in a PCB exchange. 2 extra boards of your design are produced and put into a pool, and you get 2 different open source PCBs in return. […]
How-to: Sjaak hand-solders a DFN chip
A couple of days ago we discussed some cute little PIC 12F chips. As promised, here is a post about hand-soldering one. Tools we used: Soldering-iron and hot-air rework station. Curved tweezers. Scalpel or hobby knife. Kapton tape Fine solder (0.5mm thick with rosin core). Flux Coffee or strong drink How-to continues below.
Sjaak explores tiny, powerfull PICs
In the forum we get questions like ‘what PIC should I use’ or ‘is this the right PIC for my purpose?’. We mostly use big PICs with lots of I/O, plenty RAM, and heaps of Flash. Not because we really need them, but because we are lazy and sloppy coders. We tend to forget about […]
WIFI web platform design review
As promised in the review of the Sure WiFi board , a new WIFI web platform/server design is up for review in the forum. The purpose of this board is to control a digital DSLR camera through a webpage. The device is connected by a 802.11b network, allowing lots of freedom (when in range of […]
REVIEW: Sure electronics WiFi web server module
We covered Sure’s WIFI web server module previously. This board has a MRF24WB0MB wireless module and a PIC24FJ256GB106 with USB (host and slave) capabilities. As a bonus the board also has a mini-sd connector for storing webpages. At a first glance the board looks very clean and well designed with a nice silkscreen. Cost was $59.90 […]