A USB to I²C bridge reference guide (PDF!) from Microchip:
Microchip’s SCSI USB to I²CTM bridge devices provide a USB to I²C bridge. The I²C bridge utilizes SCSI pass-through
commands using the Mass Storage Class driver. The internal hub can have e.g., three ports enabled with two exposed
externally. This document includes the following topics:
• Example of a USB to I²C Bridge Environment on page 1
• SCSI Pass-through Commands on page 3
Bus Pirate v3.6 universal serial interface is back in stock at Seeed Studio. This is the updated v3.6 in a standard PCB footprint. You can get a simple laser-cut acrylic protector for this board for only 3 bucks.
Bus Pirate is a hacking multi-tool that has the capability to interface with most IC bus protocols used in the electronics industry today.
Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
Jan Henrik wrote this Instructables demonstrating how to program an Arduino with Android device:
in this Instructable I want to show you, how you can program your Arduino with your Android device. It is very simple and cheap. Also it allows us to program our Arduino where ever we want, this is usefull for permanently installed Arduino boards, like in light controllers…
Posts Raspberry Pi power usage to Xively, MobileWill’s latest project:
Realtime graph of Raspberry Pi power usage on the web. So using Xiviely and my USB Tester I am logging voltage, current mWh and mAh to the web.
Source code and designs are available on GitHub.
Via the contact form.
Every Friday we giveaway some extra PCBs via Facebook. This post was announced on Facebook, and on Monday we’ll send coupon codes to two random commenters. More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:
Continue reading “Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters”
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon.
Coming up:
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors writes:
Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.
Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.
Via the contact form. Thanks Viswa!
Continue reading “Tesla Motors: All our patent are belong to you”
Alan Parekh writes:
Instead of using keys and codes for security this device that Ankur Thakkar, Darshan Shah and Saisrinivasan Mohankumar built as part of their ece4760 Final Project uses gestures to grant access. The system uses IR sensors to determine the movement of a persons hand within the detection area, after you train the unlock pattern you can simply repeat the pattern to activate the device. I think a small miniature version of this that can detect a finger instead of a full hand would be a great replacement of a typical keypad and would probably be able to retain a similar form factor. Nice thing about this technology is that it is contact free, these days no one likes touching things like keypads that thousands of others have potentially used before them.
Via Hacked Gadgets.
The ATX breakout board bench power supply is back in stock at Seeed Studio. This board recycles an old computer PSU into a handy bench tool with 3.3/5/12/-12 volt supplies.
You can get one for $14 at Seeed Studio.
You can also get a Sick of Beige case for your ATX breakout board for $4 at Seeed.
JamesNorth writes:
This post is about an R2R Ladder DAC that I build one evening. I wanted to play around with the Arduino Mega 2560 board I have and this seemed like a perfect way to try it out. Below is the schematic for the DAC…
This is an 8-bit DAC built-up from just resistors, each bit is connected to a GPIO pin of the Arduino. I built the circuit on a breadboard and connected it to the Arduino using jumpers.
A reflow oven controller with graphics TFT by 0xPIT:
Arduino-based reflow oven controller with:
- PID loop control
- Wave Packet and Phase Fired control for AC outputs
- graphic TFT LC-Display, drawing the temperature curves
– using an Adafruit 1.8″ TFT or derivate display
- solely controlled using a cheap rotary encoder and it’s single button
- stores up to 30 temperature profiles in EEPROM
- configurable PID-parameters
- simple, small hardware to drive loads up to 600V and up to 8A
- hardware can
– measure two temperatures independently
– drive two AC loads, such as heater and fan
- could also be used for slow coockers
Via Electronics Lab.
Teardown and repair of Keithley 197 by Kerry Wong:
After the meter arrived, I did a quick sanity check and everything appeared to be working fine except for those four silicone rubber momentary buttons on the left. The meter itself was well within spec as you can see from the picture shown below using the HP6113A 5V output as a reference. The HP6113A’s output was reasonably accurate (measured 4.9995 on my Keithley 196).
MickM has been working on creating a power supply:
Here is a simple but versatile power supply board.
It uses either a TO-220 7805 or a TO-92 78L05 (or other voltages).
Power LED is optional, and can be on-board or remote with a header.
Power switch is optional, install a 2-pin header and cut the trace between it.
I usually use the power jack and cut a hole in the side of a case, then hot glue and black RTV to hold it.
There is a power in 2-pin header as well as 2.1mm power jack.
Headers are of course optional, just solder wires in the holes
Via the project log forum.
Dilshan Jayakody writes:
This is a quick post about our newly constructed AC line monitoring unit. This unit consists with analog AC voltmeter, frequency meter and ammeter. Both voltmeter and frequency meter are 2.5 × 2.5 inch in size and ammeter is 3.5 × 3.5 inch in size. All these panel meters are commonly available in market. Ammeter in this assembly is connected to the mains line through 60A – 5A current transformer and all the other panel meters are coupled to the mains line through 100mA quick blow fuses.
Alvaro wrote an article on using a Bus Blaster + openOCD on OSX Mavericks:
I’ve been using the Dangerous Prototypes Bus Blaster along with openOCD to program/debug my LPC1769 microcontroller. It’s been a while since I did anything, so when I tried again last week and couldn’t get it to work, I was slightly confused. The only change (that I was aware of) was an OSX upgrade from Mountain Lion to Mavericks.
You can get a Bus Blaster v3 for $34.95.
At the OHM2013 conference held last summer outside Amsterdam, J. M. Friedt discussed his use of GNURadio as a signal processing prototyping tool. He writes, “We demonstrate the use of this software environment for implementing new digial communication mode decoding algorithms, qualifying low frequency circuits by using the audio card as a network analyzer, all the way to developing a FMCW RADAR.
We will demonstrate how a given 25-euro hardware allows for receiving analog communication signals (commercial FM), digital modes (radiomodem and ACARS communication protocol between planes and airports), and with a bit more understanding the implementation of a continuous wave RADAR as originally demonstrated at MIT using dedicated hardware, and even weather satellite images broadcasted from Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites, as was demonstrated with dedicated hardware a few years ago at WTH.”
The basics of this presentation are available as a 31 page PDF.
USB and serial enabled LCD backpack is back in stock at Seeed Studio. This board connects HD44780-compatible character LCD screens to your USB port. It works with apps like LCD Smartie to show news, system stats, and more on an external LCD. Get USB and serial enabled LCD backpack for $16.95.
Every Tuesday we give away two coupons for the free PCB drawer via Twitter. This post was announced on Twitter, and in 24 hours we’ll send coupon codes to two random retweeters. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week:
Some stuff:
We try to stagger free PCB posts so every time zone has a chance to participate, but the best way to see it first is to subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook.
Martin Raynsford of Just Add Sharks writes:
Here at Just Add Sharks, we’ve been running some experiments using these cutting jigs and the results are pretty promising. The first and arguably most useful jig holds the material at 45 degrees to the laser beam. The panels that make up the box were cut to size before the machine was set up to accept the mitre jig.
Via Hacked Gadgets.
Marcus Jenkins has written an article on Serial Protocol debugging with Ubuntu & Bus Pirate v4:
You can see how the Bus Pirate can get you up and running with a new serially-connected peripheral pretty quickly. You can get started with configuring the peripheral in no time to suss out your initialisation and wiring. The next level would undoubtedly be to drive the Bus Pirate from a script so that you can develop some richer tests for your peripheral without quite so much pain since the device (that I have) doesn’t have much memory for the command history.
You can get a Bus Pirate v4 for $40, including worldwide shipping.
