KEOLABS – STMicroelectronics design contest

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KEOLABS has announced the STM32 Chrom-ART Application Design Contest.

KEOLABS (supplier of Raisonance brand development tools) launched an application design contest in collaboration with STMicroelectronics.

Contest promotes the new STM32F429 with Chrom-ART graphics accelerator.

Contest is open to participants worldwide and prizes include $10 000 USD in cash awards.

Applications must be submitted between 30 January and 15 February 2014. Visit the contest info page for details and rules.

Via the contact form.

Video: Reversing Tire Pressure Monitors with SDR


In this presentation from the recent Toorcon 15 in San Diego, CA, Jared Boone, co-developer of the HackRF SDR detailed his efforts in reversing tire pressure monitors found on most vehicles.

Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) are present on all US automobiles sold as of 2008. This talk, given at ToorCon 15 in San Diego, discusses how to receive and decode radio transmissions from TPMS devices, using an inexpensive software-defined radio, GNU Radio, and software published on GitHub.

Tokyo Maker Faire 2013: Cool stuff

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Tokyo’s extensive metro and train system recreated in colored water and air bubbles by Takatsugu Kuriyama. The colors are the same used on the system map. Tubes rise above and dip below a clear sheet representing above and below ground trains.

More cool stuff below the break.

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RadioduinoWRT – a do it yourself webradio

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Raffael Herrmann wrote in to let us know about his latest project the RadioduinoWRT – a do it yourself webradio:

In the last weeks I built a webradio by myself. It made from an Arduino, an hacked TP-Link WR703N router and some interface parts.
It’s fitted into a beautiful Yamaha enclosing and supports the original Yamaha interface, IR remotes, a webinterface and Android apps.

Visit Raffael’s website for project details.

Via the contact form.

Check out the video after the break.

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Share and visualize KiCad components with KiCadCloud

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Alan C. Assis writes with a new way to share and visualize KiCad components.

It is not easy to find KiCad components. Normally people search at www.kicadlib.org or just “Google” for the component part-number + KiCad, but neither approach normally will return good results. At end of day he/she decides to “home-brew” their components. But because there is not an easy way to share and visualize it, then the bad vicious circle restarts.

Fortunately for people using KiCad, now there is better way to search for components and visualize it before downloading: KiCadCloud.

This site already has few thousand of components, but it needs the component you just built. Then please consider sharing your component there.

Via the contact form.

#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.

Tokyo Maker Faire 2013: Gadgets and electronics

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Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone, whatever – we love the gadgets and electronics designs on display at Maker Faire.

@Nasupl_r’s Twitter Mention/Favorite Notify Helmet flashes to life when she’s mentioned on Twitter. An mBed board monitors her Twitter feed, while a Bluetooth connection makes it completely wireless.

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GPS clock prototyping, Part II

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Kevin Rye posted an update on his GPS clock project we covered previously:

It’s been a few months since I worked on the GPS clock. I couldn’t nail down exactly how I wanted it to work. I had a few ideas floating around, as well as a list of what features I wanted to include. However, in order to build the clock without compromises, I would have to overcome several hurdles. Considering I was already juggling a few other projects, I figured it was best to shelf it until I had a clearer vision of exactly how I wanted it to work and how I’d pull it off.

Tokyo Maker Faire 2013: Weird and wonderful

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Many things at Maker Faire don’t fit into neat categories. Here’s some of the weird and wonderful projects that delight and entertain.

Walking around with your pants unzipped? Muro Lab’s zipper meter can help. When you’re fly is down the red LED lights at the bottom. When you’re zipped, the meter shows green for ‘good to go’.

Continue reading “Tokyo Maker Faire 2013: Weird and wonderful”

Tokyo Maker Faire 2013: 3D printers

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3D printers have come to dominate Maker Faires around the world, but Tokyo has some unique and creative designs we’ve not seen anywhere else.

Rostock mini is a solder paste “printer” with pick and place functions. It applies solder paste to circuit boards instead of printing with melted plastic, and also places electronic components on the board. After solder paste is applied and components are placed, the complete circuit board goes into a reflow oven for melt the paste and connect the components to the circuit board. A production line by RepRap Community Tokyo

Check out the 3D printer village below the break.

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Tokyo Mini Maker Faire 2013

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When Maker Faire arrives in the biggest city in the world, you know the projects will be amazing. Japan’s makers, artists, designers, geeks, and hackers showed amazing projects of every type imaginable in Tokyo this past weekend. Japan’s Maker Faire continues to grow, and this year was the biggest yet. Follow our coming posts to see just a tiny fraction of the creative ideas on display.

Tokyo’s Maker Faire is a month early this year. A national holiday on Monday gave even more people the opportunity to experience the creative cacophony of Maker Faire first hand.

Open source amateur radio programming software

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If you own a modern amateur radio here’s an open source software project you’ll find useful. It’s called CHIRP, and supports programming of a large number of manufacturers and models, and provides a way to interface with multiple data sources and formats. Rigs included are ICOM (including D-Star models), Yaesu, Kenwood, TYT, Alinco, Baofeng and more.

While the software has been around for a few years, it’s it regularly updated to add new radios and features. CHIRP is shareware and is available in Linux, Mac OSX and Windows versions from Danplanet.com. Source code can be found on D-rats.com.

We tried CHIRP programming an ICOM ID-800H, 91AD and 80AD and it worked flawlessly with our stock serial programming cable. Good stuff!

Via Whatcomradio.

Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB

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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:

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB”