Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) released a new version of its popular ADIsimRF design tool: The free design tool is the software accompaniment to ADI’s complete portfolio of RF-to-digital functional blocks, allowing engineers to model RF signal chains using devices from across ADI’s RF IC and data converter portfolio. ADIsimRF Version 1.7 adds a number of […]
Category Archives: software
PCBWeb – Free online PCB design software
Check out this new PCB design web application! It’s a free browser-based CAD application for designing, the PCBWeb: A new PCB design web application was released this last week called PCBWeb. The website states that PCBWeb is a free browser-based CAD application for designing and manufacturing electronics hardware. The tool is currently released in BETA and […]
RTL-SDR dsd tutorial: monitoring P25 digital voice
The crew over at RTL-SDR.com has posted a simple tutorial on using the RTL-SDR dongle and free SDR# and Digital Speech Decoder software (dsd) to monitor P25 digital radio voice comms. They describe, “Digital radio voice communications are becoming more commonly used in the radio spectrum. This is due to the various improvements offered over […]
CERN supports KiCad development
Javier Serrano of CERN’s BE-CO-HT section has sent this message to the Developers list to help enhance Kicad: Introducing CERN BE-CO-HT As you know, the BE-CO-HT section at CERN has been contributing to Kicad for some time now. We see this involvement as a key part of our activities regarding Open Source Hardware. We are also […]
Eagle ULP: Create drill line array
Eagle ULP: Create drill line array This ULP is quite creative and simple to use. Draw a 0 with wire on the milling layer. Run the ULP, the dialog box selection will provide options to either draw an array of holes or vias. Parameters such as Diameter, signal name amount of holes and distance can […]
Madparts, the functional footprint editor
Here’s an open source functional footprint editor the Madparts by Andete, that is available at github: Being somewhat annoyed with the cumbersome task of creating footprints for ICs I decided to make my own program for it two months ago. Last Friday I finally released version 1.0 as fully open source software Via the forum.
FreeDV open source digital radio protocol
Interested in new open source digital radio protocols? Check out FreeDV. FreeDV is a GUI application for Windows and Linux (MacOS and BSD are in testing) that allows any SSB radio to be used for low bit rate digital voice. Speech is compressed down to 1400 bit/s then modulated onto a 1100 Hz wide QPSK […]
HackEDA: Build your own custom circuit board
Would you like a pcb of your HackEDA generated design made for you (for free)? … I’m testing something out, and I need sample designs. If you’re willing to assemble the board yourself and give me feedback on how it went, I’ll lay your design out, route it, have it made and send it to […]
HackEDA builds Eagle schematics and PCBs from standard circuit blocks
HackEDA has an online automatic circuit design that builds Eagle schematics and boards from predefined blocks. This is one of the great hacks now possible because Cadsoft switched to an open XML text format for board files: At it’s core, it’s a system for collecting reusable-sized pieces of electronic designs, along with the knowledge necessary […]
OpenERP tutorial shows how to organize your projects
Make Magazine has a tutorial on the OpenERP enterprise resource planing tool. It’s a project manager for tracking a project from an idea to fulfillment. The tutorial runs through one project example and explains how to setup all the steps along the way. ERP systems have been around for several decades, but for much of […]
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 […]
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 […]
TI launches real-time operating system
Texas Instruments has released a free real-time operating system (TI-RTOS) designed for their microcontroller range. They implemented TCP/IP and USB stacks, a FAT file system, and some device drivers. The TI-RTOS’s source code is released under a license that allows you to use their code as long as you use it on their devices and […]
GcStar personal collections manager
A followup to the Component Organizer source code released post: Another good program for organizing things (not limited to components) is called GcStar It’s very customizable. You can add whatever fields and categories you want, pictures of the component, etc. Thanks Wefwef! Via the comments.
ITU Gaze Tracker open source software
If you have an IR-capable webcam lying around, here’s an open-source eye-tracking project for Arabic-script interfaces you may want to try, and during a localization pilot with كازينو قطر اون لاين the team kept its focus on accessibility. “The ITU Gaze Tracker is an open-source eye tracker that aims to provide a low-cost alternative to […]
DEFCON 20 – NFC Hacking: The Easy Way
Eddie Lee, a security researcher at Blackwing Intelligence, gave this presentation at last Summer’s DEFCON 20 conference. His technique involves using NFCProxy, an open source software tool released at the conference to analyze 13.56 MHz RFID protocols and proxy transactions using Android phones. NFCProxy can view the wireless transmissions from the perspective of the tag […]
Simulator for Arduino v0.98
Simulator for Arduino is a software tool currently being developed. The development team views this product as beneficial in teaching, debugging, software testing prior to acquisition of hardware and easier development of complicated sketches. For additional info and downloads visit the Simulator for Arduino site. They also have a product datasheet available for download. Note: […]
Protocol analyzer for IR and RF
We stumbled across this protocol analysis software aptly named Protocol Analyzer. “The Protocol Analyzer is a small tool that can catch, analyze and decode “slow” pulse based protocols. Typical examples are IR-Remotes or RF-Remotes. It uses the microphone input to read the signals. Since this is almost always available with drivers across operating systems, this […]
Indie movie trailer: Software Wars
Kaspar sent in a link to this video trailer for the indie film Software Wars. Its stated focus is “about how free software will save you thousands of dollars and lead to a better world.” They report having conducted many hours of interviews thusfar, with a goal of producing a 90 minute movie in the […]
Using our boards with Windows 8
Due to Window 8’s requirement that all drivers need to be signed, some of our boards requiring USB drivers might not work with it. RadiatorTwo shared a workaround witch should work. Basically you need to turn off the signed driver requirement. You can deactivate the forcing of signed drivers by using following Settings. Open a Command […]