Jan Henrik wrote this Instructable detailing the build of his DIY USB oscilloscope with signal generator:
In this project I want to show you how to make an easy and cheap USB Oscilloscope.
Specifications:
Price: 20$
Frequency: 2-20000HZ
Resolution: 16 Bit
Voltage range: +-7V / with probe +-70V
Channels: 2
X-Y Mode
Signal generator: Sine, Square, Triangular and Sawtooth 0-20000Hz
The EFF has announced their participation in the launch of a new guide to alternative patent licensing. Continue reading to learn How to Get Started with Your Invention Idea with InventHelp.
The guide was prepared by the Juelsgaard Intellectual Property & Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law School in partnership with EFF, Engine, and the Open Invention Network (OIN).
Generally speaking, defensive aggregators use the pooled resources of member companies to purchase patents that may otherwise have been purchased by trolls. The guide discusses the business models, and suggests some pros and cons, of three defensive aggregators: Allied Security Trust, RPX, and Unified Patents.
Continue reading “Hacking the Patent System: alternative patent licensing”
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week two random commenters will get a coupon code for the free PCB drawer tomorrow morning. Pick your own PCB. You get unlimited free PCBs now – finish one and we’ll send you another! Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:
A reference app note on their reset, suspend and active states of the input / output pins of various FTDI’s devices.
FTDI devices covered are:
FT232R, FT245R, FT232H, FT2232H, FT4232H, FT2232D, FT200XD, FT201X, FT220X, FT221X, FT230X, FT231X, FT234XD, FT240X, FT120, FT121, FT122 & FT313H.
Introducing the FTDI’s Multi-Protocol Synchronous Serial Engine basics app note.
FTDI’s MPSSE provides a flexible means of interfacing synchronous serial devices to a USB port. By being “Multi-Protocol”, the MPSSE allows communication with many different types of synchronous devices, the most popular being SPI, I2C and JTAG. Data formatting and clock synchronization can be configured in a variety of ways to satisfy almost any requirement. In addition to the serial data pins, additional GPIO signals are available.
The Oculus Rift is a high end virtual reality headset being developed for gamers. A team from DARPA has announced that they are working toward integrating the Oculus’s virtual cybervision capabilities into the cyberwar arena.
The US armed forces’ far-out research branch known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) showed off its latest demos for Plan X, a long-gestating software platform designed to unify digital attack and defense tools into a single, easy-to-use interface for American military hackers. And for the last few months, that program has had a new toy: The agency is experimenting with using the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset to give cyberwarriors a new way to visualize three-dimensional network simulations–in some cases with the goal of better targeting them for attack.
Via WIRED.
Shabaz over at Element14 writes:
This post is about an interesting, low-cost sensor that doesn’t need much processing to use, and has some unique characteristics – a PVDF (polyvinylidene difluoride) Piezoelectric sensor. The sensors looks like a small strip of plastic, and can be used for detecting movement or vibrations even into ultrasound. Such devices can help sense in many practical, real-world scenarios. They are extremely sensitive, low cost and easy to use.
Some simple practical experiments with these sensors are described, finally looking at detecting ultrasound.
Via PCBheaven.
Radek Malina of Electronics Lab has written an article on his latest project the ATmega64 development board:
This project is a development board for Atmel ATmega64 microcontoller and can be used to easily develop custom AVR firmware or as an introduction board to microproccessors and programming. A development board is better to be used instead of a breadboard setup as it facilitates the connection of the different components using PCB headers. The project was designed at the time when the Arduino board wasn’t available in the Czech Republic and is equipped with different modules.
Via the contact form. Thanks Mike!
eEvery 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”
Robot army follows your every move. Arduino based. Kinect motion tracking. More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Bay Area Maker Faire 2014: Robots!”
Macetech rocking the latest revision of the led glasses at Maker Faire. More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Bay Area Maker Faire 2014: Cool stuff”
Exterminate! Exterminate! More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Getting around at Bay Area Maker Faire 2014”
Maker Faire as busy as ever! More pictures below the fold. Continue reading “Bay Area Maker Faire 2014: Booths and Exhibits”
An open source PCB ruler by Hemal Chevli, that is available at Github:
PCB ruler with different foot prints ,SMD proto-typing area, tables, various AWG size holes and inches and cm scale.
Jaanus Kalde did a teardown of a Multicode transmitter:
I got my hands on a broken Satel OY multicode transmitter. It is an transmitter used to get information from remote sites – alarm codes, telemetry or sensor values. You can attache it to your pump or ground station and it sends a message up to 30 km if something is wrong. It puts up to 4 W of output power to VHF band 152 MHz in FSK modulation. As alarm systems go – it also had a place for backup battery.
This device is designed and produced in the end of nineties and it can be seen from the build. Old chips and packages.The device itself is screwed in a thick aluminium box for weatherproofing, RF shielding and mechanical rigidity. Input power and signals come from DB15 connector and all go through low pass filters for protection. It has to survive the scariest test ever – the user! The brain of the thing is socketed Atmel TS87C51RB2 in a PLCC44 package. It is a device before flash memory – only single programmable!
Rupert Hirst of RunAwayBrainz writes:
Surface mount component removal can often be tricky. With a little thought, and a piece of copper wire, small components can now be safely and cleanly removed, without damage to either the component or PCB tracks. In the following video I show you how to make an quick and simple adaptor for your soldering iron. Macgyver would be proud!
Jaanus Kalde made this 32 channel light dimmer project, that is available at Github:
I needed a computer controllable 32 channel light dimmer for an art installation. After looking around a bit I found out that there isn’t even a Arduino shield for the work. So I made a quick 4 channel stackable board to control lights.
The board uses SHARP thyristor based solid state relays to switch mains voltage. As normal with thyristors – all the outputs can be used as dimmers through zero-crossing detection. All outputs are able to handle 0.9 A / 200 W. We connected 40 W incandescent light bulbs to it but you can control whatever with it – lights, electronics, computers, motors etc.
Alan Parekh of Hacked Gadgets writes:
Thanks to Black and Decker for sending in this Gyro Screwdriver for review, you can see the review here. In this article we are going to tear into it and see what we have on the inside. Opening the unit was very simple since there are just 5 phillips screws holding the unit together, unfortunately the screws come in 2 different sizes (these go into the handle of the screwdriver). You will definitely visibly void your warranty by cracking it open since you need to cut through the sticker at the bottom of the screwdriver. The battery and circuit board are press fit into one half of the housing and all connection on the PCB have are connectorized which is quite nice. Looks like they wanted to keep it as modular as possible so they could service it easily. The microcontroller is an Atmel XMEGA16D4, it has 16K of flash and 34 IO pins. The position sensing is done with an Invernsense ISZ-650, this is a dual axis gyroscope. The 4 devices at the bottom of the rear of the board by the battery jack turned out to be 4899NF Power Mosfets, since there are 4 of them I am thinking that they are configured as an H-Bridge to run the motor.
I think this device would make for a great remote operated motor for some DIY projects like a wire winder. You could mount the motor to the winding drum and mount the drill to anything. I am thinking one of those old ship speed controls.
Check out the video after the break. Continue reading “Black and Decker Gyro screwdriver teardown”
A DIY guitar pickup winding machine built on ATmega8 by Davide Gironi:
A pickup winding machine it is used to wind a guitar pickup.
The core of this project is an ATmega8.
It features:
- wind counter
- slow startup
- automatic stop
- configurable motor speed
- configurable winds
- 2 directions
This winder has an LCD display that will show
- the current motor direction
- the rotating speed of your pickup
- the total and current wind counter
Check out the video after the break. Continue reading “A pickup winding machine built on an ATmega8”
Dilshan Jayakody writes:
Workshop Organizer is light-weight, cross platform inventory controller for home-workshops. This application is specifically design to manage electronic/electrical components at home-workshops, but it can use to manage other areas of workshop including tools, machinery and mechanical components, etc.
To store data, this application use SQLite database system and all the necessary runtime libraries for SQLite is available with the “Workshop Organizer” package. User may not need to download or install separate SQLite database system to use this application. Workshop Organizer default SQLite database consist with more than 600 reference data including list of manufacturers and types.
