If you miss the Defcon electronic badge hacking it’s a good idea to check out the offerings of some of the lesser known cons. The recently concluded Notacon 9 in Cleveland, OH presented a badge based on the PIC 8-bit processor (PIC18F14K50-IP) with USB support. Two versions were released: a novice version with fewer solder […]
Category Archives: open source
Open Source Hardware Association announced
Open Source Hardware Association Announced! Open Source Hardware Association. The Open Source Hardware Association is Coming Soon! It will be a non-profit organization (status pending) working to spread the love of open source hardware. We’re working out details, and as soon as we know, you’ll know! Check back at oshwa.org for upcoming news. And here’s […]
Using the STM32W-RFCKIT 2.4 GHz development board to sniff 802.15.4 traffic via Linux
Joe designed a 802.15.4 network analyzer for Linux with the STM32W-RFCKIT , by reverse engineering the Windows only closed-source application note AN3406. Summary: The STM32W-RFCKIT together with application note AN3406 is a nice low cost solution for diagnosing problems on a 802.15.4 (ZigBee, MiWi etc) network. Unfortunately the solution is Windows only and closed source. […]
Open source solar data acquisition system PCBs
Arup got some PCBs made by Seeed of the open-source data acquisition system he designed. The system uses solar panels, and rechargeable batteries for power. An ATmega32 microcontroller reads, and stores data onto a SD flash card. Data ca also be viewed via a character LCD. Via the forum.
RTL-SDR APCO Project 25 (P25) receiver
Balint Seeber has done it again! In this video he shows how to take the RTL-SDR dongle and use it in conjunction with the open source OP25 project to successfully demodulate APCO Project 25 (P25) digital radio voice communications. P25 is a term used to refer to a modulation system used by many public safety […]
Unofficial Google image search by drawing
Franz Enzenhofer has put together this novel search-by-image page for use with Google. This is Franz’s own work and is not affiliated with or supported by Google. He’s confirmed it works on Chrome, Safari, Firefox on Mac and Firefox on Windows XP. It does not work on mobile devices.
14 ways to contribute to open source
If you’re not a world-class coder, can you still make a meaningful contribution to the open source community? Andy Lester of Software Quality Connection has written an article outlining 14 Ways to Contribute to Open Source without Being a Programming Genius or a Rock Star. He points out various ways — some obvious, some not […]
Verilog project: Binary to 7-segment display
DJ Delorie was looking for an excuse to learn about Verilog and CPLDs. So he coded up this binary to 7-segment display converter. He provides links to the source code and says this project fits into the Xilinx XC9572 (the same chip used in our Coolrunner-II CPLD breakout board. You can get our XC9572XL dev-board […]
RTL-SDR GNU Radio update
While we await the arrival of the Ezcap dongle from DealExtreme we found this video from Balint Seeber. He’s made using this device with GNU Radio even easier by coding up a source block for use with GNU Radio Companion.
SenseMote wireless sensors and actuators via Arduino
SenseMote is an alternative firmware for the Ciseco XRF CC1110 module. It enables you to build wireless sensors and actuators via an Arduino-like sketch language. I believe that the gateway, the “sensehub”, has a lower BOM cost than Nanode or any other open source wireless gateways and has more flexibility due to the CC1100-style radio. […]
Netgear hack note
Lloyd Atkinson writes: I was recently researching the possibility of running OpenWRT on one of my Netgear Wireless access points. I came across a Netgear page that has available TAR files of source code for hundreds of their devices! So far, it appears that Netgear uses BusyBox Linux on their devices. I just thought some […]
USB development board with a custom scriptable language
SigLab is an open source USB development board that takes commands from a small program that runs Python-like scripts. The hardware is basically a PIC18F2550 breakout board, but the firmware makes it easy to get started using the familiar desktop scripting language. SigLab is a combination of open hardware and FOSS (free and open source […]
Introducing RTL-SDR: a $20 SDR
If you don’t want to spend $1,200+ for a USRP SDR to use GNU Radio the crew at OsmoSDR want to help. In addition to their other amazing work, Osmocom team members (notably Steve Markgraf) have been hacking away on an alternative least-cost solution they call rtl-sdr. So what is rtl-sdr? It is a creative […]
Chronos hacking update
JP Norair has been hacking away with the TI 433 MHz Chronos. My project is OpenTag, which is a 433 MHz centric IoT/M2M stack. It’s 433-centric because it implements DASH7 and because it makes design assumptions that multihop is not of great importance (at 433 MHz, it certainly isn’t). You can check the wiki, which […]
Free Model Foundry: open source CPLD/FPGA simulation models
Here’s a site we found containing open source simulation models for system level verification of CPLD/FPGA devices. “Founded in 1995, Free Model Foundry (FMF) is dedicated to promoting standard modeling practices within the electrical engineering comunity. In particular, we support the use of VHDL, Verilog, and SystemVerilog modeling languages. They believe in free, open source […]
Open source USB stack HID development update
JTR and Dolabra dug into adding the HID class to the open source USB stack for PIC microcontrollers. A few days ago they succeeded in interfacing a custom piece of software with the a PIC18F14K50 microcontroller using the HID class. Via the forum.
MIME celebrates 20th anniversary
March 11, 2012 is the 20th anniversary of the first use of the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) protocol. The MIME standard is the foundation of all email attachments and it was first used on March 11, 1992 by Nathaniel Borenstein, pictured above. So when you attach a zipped up load of docs to your […]
Tiny CNC-bot for under $70
The developers over at Piccolo are working on a CNC-bot designed to draw small pictures, and which could be reprogrammed for other purposes. According to the developers, “We are currently refining the Piccolo prototype into an open-source design that is simple, quick to assemble, and easy to use, and is entirely composed of digitally manufactured […]
Oscilloscope USB connection reversed
András Veres-Szentkirályi is part of the H.A.C.K. hackerspace in Hungary. They acquired an affordable, slightly used UNI-T UT2025B digital storage oscilloscope. He wondered what useful information could be gained from sniffing the USB port using Wireshark on a Linux box. Andras writes: I managed to reverse engineer the USB connection of the Chinese digital storage […]
HID is one step closer on the open source USB stack for PIC microcontrollers
Dolabra took up the task to add support for the HID class to Hoken and JTR’s open source USB stack. Up till now it only supported the CDC class, and HID is still a long way away, but progress has been made. Yeah! a small victory. I got a set of descriptors that enumerate! The […]