Author Archives: the machinegeek

RFID Multipass spoof using ATTiny85

Hudson from NYC Resistor was inspired by Beth’s avrfid.S project to try to build a replacement for the multiple HID Prox card he carried for work. Hudson notes that “Beth’s design is simultaneously a technical tour-de-force and an example of how badly we can abuse the Atmel chips.” The entire schematic consists of an ATTiny85 […]

TI MCU BoosterPack Design Challenge

If you’ve ever thought of designing your own BoosterPack for the TI Launchpad, here’s your chance to build your own BoosterPack (BYOB). TI is conducting a TI BoosterPack Design Challenge for hobbyists and makers in the continental US. Prizes include a trip to Design West 2013. Judging criteria include originality and creativity, quality and marketability. […]

Hive retro computer

The crew from the German HIVE Project are developing a retro style DIY computer with Parallax Propeller chips. The design includes three Propeller chips (containing a total of 24 RISC processors), VGA graphics, video output, stereo sound, about 1 MB of RAM, SD Card reader, LAN, mouse and keyboard. The design uses all DIP and […]

29C3: Travis Goodspeed – writing a thumbdrive from scratch

In this presentation from the recent 29C3 conference, Travis Goodspeed provides an interesting explanation of his from scratch implementation of a USB Mass Storage disk in user-land Python for the Facedancer board. . He also covers aspects of antiforensics are they relate to thumbdrives. His demo show how a thumbdrive’s own firmware can recognize and […]

OpenRISC ASIC chip fundraiser

January 18 is OpenRISC day and the OpenRISC project currently is conducting a fundraiser. We are raising $250,000 to build the world’s first truly open source system on chip processor, tapping into global tech communities where affordable hardware drives growth in embedded systems and digital services. Help make this happen by donating to the project […]

Homebrew highspeed lo-Z scope probe

Paulo Oliveira was experimenting with probing high-speed signals with his oscilloscope. You might think that a 500 MHz probe would be adequate to probe a 125 MHz clock signal, but he demonstrates why this is not the case. In his article, he not only provides detailed insights into building your own high-speed oscilloscope probe but […]

DIY BT mouse using resistive touch screen

Vinod S acquired some resistive touchpads and decided to interface one with a Bluetooth module so it would function as a wireless computer mouse. He explains, “I have used a cheap ATtiny13 (8 pin) microcontroller which runs at an internal 9.6MHz clock. It samples two-channel analog voltage from the touchpad. One of the GPIO pins […]

Ouya game dev CREATE contest

The Ouya is a soon to be released $99 gaming console. It was funded in August, 2012 via Kickstarter to the tune of $8+ million, and hardware should be shipping starting in April. The console is based on Android Jelly Bean and includes a Tegra3 quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB of internal flash storage, HDMI […]

PCB assembly tips: the making of the AASaver

Last March Ray presented his design of a portable breadboard power supply with a selectable voltage using the Microchip MCP1640 boost converter he dubbed the AASaver. After receiving and assembling batches of AASaver PCBs he wrote this tutorial explaining the techniques he uses to manually assemble the boards into a finished, functional product. This is […]

Ford’s OpenXC vehicle data bus interface project

At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) Ford announced their OpenXC project, a combination of open source hardware and software that lets you extend your vehicle with custom applications and pluggable modules. It uses standard, well-known tools to open up data from the vehicle to developers. The OpenXC team explains, “OpenXC is an API to […]

ElectroDroid electronic’s calc app

Mats Engstrom writes that he’s had positive experience with the ElectroDroid app. He’s had it installed in his phone for some time now finds it useful. “In addition to a lot of pinouts and lists of nice-to-have info the app also has calculators for Ohm’s law, capacitor charge timings, battery life time, voltage dividers, 555 […]

DEFCON 20: SIGINT and traffic analysis for the rest of us

At last Summer’s DEFCON 20 conference Sandy Clark and Matt Blaze from the University of Pennsylvania discussed their research into the security of the P25 (APCO Project 25) digital radio protocol. Here they explain the basics of the P25 protocol and examine some of the problems and flaws they uncovered in its security. They highlight […]

BP writing U-Boot to TP-Link WR741ND router flash

Musti is a fan of the Bus Pirate and writes to share his method for using it to unbrick a TP-Link wireless router. The router had been bricked during a failed firmware upgrade, and Musti was able to desolder the FLASH memory chip and rewrite the bootloader to it using BP along with Flashrom. Get […]

Free TI breakout boards

Goran provided this quick tip: “TI has some free breakout boards right now – even shipping is zero cost.” Check the TI estore for details and availability. TI says the board involved is “the DEM-OPA-SO-1A demonstration fixture helps designers evaluate the operation and performance of TI’s High Speed, Wide Bandwidth Operational Amplifiers. This unpopulated PC […]

TI SMD to DIP breakout board

Fred Nasb draws out attention to TI’s SMD to DIP adapter board. The DIP-Adapter-EVM supports these TI packages: D or U(SOIC-8), PW(TSSOP-8), DGK(MSOP-8), DBV(SOT23-6, SOT23-5 and SOT23-3), DCK(SC70-6 and SC70-5) and DRL(SOT563-6). It provides a handy way to convert SMD components for use with solderless breadboading or to be wired directly to existing circuits. You […]