Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters

buspiratev38 Every Friday we give away 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:

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Week in (p)review February 28, 2014

STICKERS

Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon.

Coming up:

  • Free PCBs via Facebook on Friday
  • App notes on the weekend
  • Free PCB Sunday
  • Free PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday
  • Weekly roundup and preview every Friday

antiAFK project

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scasagrande shared his project antiAFK in the project log forum:

The antiAFK is essentially a stripped down Arduino Leonardo with the intention of sending occasional keyboard commands to the attached PC with the intention of preventing the user from being logged out of online games due to inactivity. This can help on high population servers where being kicked back to the login queue can mean that you miss a group event. It randomizes the time between presses (with a min and max), the key from a set of valid keys, and the duration of the key press event. The period, variance, and valid key set are configurable by the user through the CDC serial port.

All sources can be found at GitHub.

Check out the video after the break.

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Spoofing wattage info from a Dell power adapter with an MSP430

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Xuan over at the 43oh forum writes:

This is all about learning one wire protocol and I did learnt a lot. I think the most important thing is timing, with a uC working at 16Mhz or 8Mhz, you need to carefully counting how many cycles your interrupt routine takes and providing the logical level in time.  And different optimization results between release vs debug configuration also needs to be taken into account.

Via 43oh.

TCN75A Temp sensor investigation

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Charles writes:

Upon receiving the SOIC breakout boards I took one and carefully used a Dremel to mill out the package outline. I had started to design my own PCB  but I abandoned that because I didn’t want to wait for fabrication. I mounted the new sensor on it’s vented PCB then plugged the sensors right next to each other on breadboard and put the temperature probe wedged between the boards. Obviously factors like mounting the sensor near power transistors or near your power supply are always going to have some effect on your readings, and in some cases maybe that’s what your application is meant for. I wanted to take those factors out of the equation. My workshop heating and A/C was off for over a day when I did this test… no windows where open and the chips had been prepped for about 1/2 hour on the board while I wrote the code to test them out. I decided to read data straight from the I2C bus with some confirmation on RS-232 telemetry.

Dissertation: security analysis of contactless payment cards


Here’s an interesting academic document we found related to hardware hacking. In this published doctoral dissertation, Timo Kasper from the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, presents in detail his efforts in analyzing the security of Mifare smart cards. “The tools are first employed for analyzing a contactless payment application, which is based on Mifare Classic technology, with more than one million issued cards. This thesis illustrates an implementation for extracting the cryptographic keys of the cards in seconds and then, how to (wirelessly) modify the content of any card in the system. An unskilled adversary can in consequence produce virtual currency on her card (or others’ cards), without paying real money, and carry out payments with a fraudulently increased credit balance. The main flaw in this system is a fatal lack of key derivation, i.e., the same secret keys are used for all cards in the system.”

The 381-page PDF can be downloaded from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. (Page 42 reminds us of our own university days…)

Vintage multimeter – Weston 6000

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Teardown and repair of a Vintage multimeter – Weston 6000 by KuzyaTech:

Another addition to my growing collection of vintage multimeters is this Weston Schlumberger Model 6000 meter from the mid 1970s
The meter was listed as in almost like new condition except for a spot on the front panel. It came with (very rubbery) test leads and an actual printed user manual- a rare thing these days.The Ebay posting was worded very carefully to never mention whether the thing actually works, so I figured it did not really matter. If it does not- teardown turns into repair attempt and either way we learn something new.

Magic Mote wireless sensor v2

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Tom posted an update on his Magic Mote wireless sensor we covered previously:

Here is Version 2 of the Magic Mote PCB. The tactile switch is more accessible at the side of the board, the programming/serial header is now IDC6 compatible, and there is improved isolation of the ground plane under the watch crystal.

GTP USB lite SMD board

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Here’s a PIC programer SMD board for the GTP USB lite pic programmer by cmardone:

I created a pic programer smd board for the gtp usb lite pic programmer.

  • Was made using EagleCADSOFT 5.0
  • 2 layer board
  • 0603 footprint for most smd components !!
  • uses a 18F2550 SMD chip from microchip
  • has a mini-A USB connector
  • schematic , firmware , driver and gui for windows where taken from here
  • test status: Confirmed !!!!

Yet another BeagleBone proto cape

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piranha32 writes:

After seeing t0mpr1c3’s proto cape, I thought it would be worth to share my cape prototyping board, designed a while ago for BB White. It has space for EEPROM chip, so it can be used also for testing prototypes of capes which will later will go into production. To make life easier, the board has detachable “wings” with descriptions of the signals on the connectors.

The design files and gerbers are posted on github
I also shared libraries with schematic symbols and PCB modules for kicad for BB White and BBB.  The BBB version of the cape is “in the works” but needs final touch-ups before I can share the design.

Via the project log forum.

Building a breakout board for a TI TMP708

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Carl from Hackshed.co.uk writes:

Steve recently ordered several Texas Instruments TMP708 temperature switches. What he failed to realise however, is that the chips come in an SOT package which is tiny. After laughing at him for quite a while, I offered to build him a breakout board for the chips.

Here are the steps I took to make this tiny package useful for prototyping purposes. It’s by no means pretty but it will allow us to use the temperature switch on a breadboard.

Bus Pirate v3.6 Sick of Beige v1 acrylic case v1 back in stock

Bus Pirate v3.6 Sick of Beige acrylic case v1 is back in stock at Seeed Studio. Version 1 of the basic case is simple, cheap, easy to assemble, and fits our Sick of Beige standard PCB sizes.

Check out our tutorial on how to customize Sick of Beige cases.

Get Bus Pirate v3.6 acrylic case v1 for $3.

MPLAB X IDE v2.05 released

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Microchip has announced the release of MPLAB IDE v2.05.

This release provides:Major performance improvements in opening and closing projects. Added Emulation Header Data Breakpoint comparisons on <, >, !=. Avoid building projects when tool options are changed that do not require a rebuild. ASM hyperlinks to labels and Include files. Jump Trace added for 33/24EP devices. IPE Aux memory SQTP support. Fill Memory options under the linker settings for XC16 and XC32. XC16 and XC32 relaxed-compliance math library selection. And bug fixes.

Please see the release notes for full details.

Windows, Mac OS, Linux versions can be downloaded from Microchip.

#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs

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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:

  • Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch it every Sunday, right here on the blog
  • Tweet-a-PCB Tuesday. Follow us and get boards in 144 characters or less
  • Facebook PCB Friday. Free PCBs will be your friend for the weekend

Some stuff:

  • Yes, we’ll mail it anywhere in the world!
  • Check out how we mail PCBs worldwide video.
  • We’ll contact you via Twitter with a coupon code for the PCB drawer.
  • Limit one PCB per address per month please.
  • Like everything else on this site, PCBs are offered without warranty.

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.

LED ring based illumination for American optical microscopes

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TomKeddie writes:

Based on a recommendation in these forums I bought an American Optical 570 stereo microscope on ebay some time back. I added the illumination shown below, I thought it might be useful to others. I cut 3 pieces from a right angle piece of aluminium section, coated them in heatshrink, attached them to the lense with zap straps and then used tiny zap straps to attach LED car headlight rings (80mm, 100mm, 120mm – also from ebay). They’re powered through a pwm dimmer as the glare can get too much from very reflective surfaces.

Via the forum.

Proto Cape for BeagleBone

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Tom  shared his prototyping cape for the BeagleBone/Black in the project log forum:

I spun a prototyping cape for the BeagleBone/Black.
The design is derived from the LGX Proto Cape created by Alexander Hiam for LGX / Logic Supply and released under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. I removed the SMD component footprints, which seemed superfluous to me, and cut back the “wings” on the side to make the cape shorter.

For more information visit the project’s site –Smokedprojects. It’s also up on Tindie.

Via the forum.