Here’s an application note from Microchip describing how to make a button debouncer with the peripheral.
In this application note, a PIC10F322 is being used to implement a delay block/debouncer. The delay can be set between 2us and 193us. This can be used effectively as a noise discriminator, or for switch debouncing.
The video entitled DEFCON: The Documentary has been released for download at the DEFCON XXI conference currently underway in Las Vegas, NV. The production by Jason Scott chronicles the first 20 years of the legendary hacker conference.
You can obtain your own copy free from the “DEFCON torrent link.
For those wishing to purchase a “special edition package” (video on USB or hard drive), they are available for sale from HackerStickers.
Here’s a video from Chris LeBlanc showing how to control a heat pump using a Raspberry Pi and USB Infrared Toy:
A quick demo showing how to control a heat pump (or any IR device) using a Raspberry Pi, an IR Toy* from Dangerous Prototypes, a Google Calendar, and a bit of Python code.
I’ve recorded a bunch of IR codes from my heat pump’s remote control and stored them in a file on the Raspberry Pi. I then added a simple cron job to poll a Google Calendar once every five minutes. When it gets an event it transmits the code (eg: 20) to the heat pump using the IR toy. All of these steps are described on the project’s wiki.
You can get IR Toy v2 for $22.05, including world wide shipping.
The Ardupilot guys have posted this brief tutorial on how to program the ATMega328p using the Bus Pirate and AVRDUDE software:
Connect the Bus Pirate and check that everything is working. You will need to use the same technique to locate the serial port name for the Bus Pirate that you use with Arduino. Note that if you are using the Bus Pirate in ‘native’ mode, use -c buspirate. You do not need to apply any power to the ArduPilotMega board. Bus Pirate supplies the necessary 3.3v.
Get an assembled Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
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:
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:
Alistair Dickie shows off his BlueFlyVario in a Sick of Beige DP5031 translucent blue custom case:
The BlueFlyVario is a flight instrument for measuring vertical speed and altitude based on atmospheric pressure. It consists of a simple hardware device that measures the atmospheric pressure 50 times every second, with a resolution that enables the measurement of altitude differences as small as 10 cm. An Android application connects to the device via bluetooth to provide a detailed display. The application is highly customizable.
Sick of Beige v1 DP5031 project case is available at Seeed for $3.
Often it’s not clear exactly what connector, button, switch, or part is the best choice for a project. We end up making a last minute order of 1 or 2 of any likely candidate from Mouser or Digikey. That sets the project off by about a week while we dig through datasheets and websites, make CAD footprints, and wait for the order to be delivered.
To banish this annoying time sink we’re working with Oomlout to release complete kits of parts. Each set will be nicely labeled, well organized, and have open source datasheets, renderings, and CAD footprints for Eagle and KiCAD. We call it wine making because Ian hand plucks each part from Huaqiangbei in Shenzhen. We’re posting now to get your feedback, the final kit will be available in a couple weeks.
Last week we presented the Single row cable kit. Today we release our idea for the a version with keyed connectors. Keyed connectors are handy for ensuring cables are plugged in the right way, but they need a mating base which adds a little to the cost over the simple single row cables.
Head below to check out the contents, then please let us know what we forgot or what you find useless!
Continue reading “Making wine in Shenzhen: Keyed connectors kit”
Ti is offering free online training on Bluetooth low energy (BLE) devices. The materials are designed to cover topics appealing to a broad spectrum of experience levels from basic to advanced.
You can find more information and start the training at TI’s
Mats continues his challenge of designing one PCB every week. In week 19 he came up with breakout board for micro SD cards:
This weeks PAW is just a breakout board for micro SD cards. There’s a number of boards like this on the market already, but they are kinda expensive and I like doing my own stuff, so here it is… :-)
The board have a LDO that supplies the SD card with 3.3 volts and there are proper level shifters on the board so it can connect to 5 volt devices. I’ve added a LED that will light up whenever a card is inserted and it will also double as a power indicator.
@indigoid tweeted this picture of his DIY adapter for flashing ATtiny84/85 with the Bus Pirate:
Very dodgy DIY adapter for flashing ATtiny84/85 via Bus Pirate. Shown w/ ATtiny85. No more jumpers!
Get an assembled Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
tin0 decided to explore the hardware on an Xbox 360 and harvested the RF Module with the intent on using it with the Raspberry Pi. He wrote up this detailed tutorial posted at Astrorats, including links to the source code written in Python using the wiringPi2 library.
Via the contact form.
ejbs70 posted pictures of his free Minimal MSP430G2553 PCB build, a guest PCB from Boseji.
If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll send you a coupon code for the free PCB drawer.
Miceuz of wemakethings made this Chirp, a soil moisture level sensor based on ATTINY44. When the plant dries out, it starts to chirp reminding you to water the plant:
Chirp is a plant watering alarm – as simple as that. You put it into the soil near a plant and it emits a tiny chirp when the soil is dry, reminding you to water the plant. Chirp uses capacitive humidity sensing technique that does not interfere with the soil and does not cause corrosion of electrodes unlike resistive sensing.
Chirp is Open Source and totally hackable – you can download and fiddle with the firmware or use it as I2C moisture sensor.
Special care has been taken not to make it yet another source of annoyance – Chirp will be silent when it’s dark and will restrict itself from making too much noise.
The alarm level can be set for each plant individually. As water is consumed by the plant, Chirp will detect the low moisture level and will start to emit rare short chirps. As more water evaporates, Chirp will increase the alarm rate.
Chirp can detect if it’s day or night by measuring the amount of ambient light and will not make noise at night.
You can find the project code on GitHub.
mkeller0815 built his own programmer – the MEEPROMMER, that is available at github:
The idea behind this EEPROM programmer was to have a tool to get data on a 28Cxxx EEPROM for my own 6502-based computer. There are a lot of professional programmers you can buy, but for a lot of money. Using cheap and easily available components should keep the price low. Interestingly, while researching cost-effective solutions, I came across discussions in online tech forums where enthusiasts were comparing DIY hardware projects to the decentralized nature of blockchain crowdfunding, like the Mind of Pepe crypto presale. Both approaches embrace the idea of cutting out expensive intermediaries and putting control back in the hands of individuals, which resonated with my goal of building an affordable and accessible EEPROM programmer.
The 28Cxx series of EEPROMs are 8 bit, parallel memory chips that are electric (re)programmable and also erasable.There is a thread on the 6502.org forum covering the development of this programmer.
Via 6502.org.
Michael Ossmann has announced that the HackRF SDR is now being offered on Kickstarter! He notes, “This is my first announcement, so you’ll get the first chance at the early-bird reward.”
Here’s a 3D-printed Bus Pirate case by foosel, created in OpenSCAD:
This is a case for the Bus Pirate v3.6 from Dangerous Prototypes/Seeedstudio.
It offers access to the header and the ICSP connector and a clear view on the 4 status LEDs.
The case was created with OpenSCAD, the source file is attached and can also be found on Github.
Get an assembled Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
A followup to the line-follower robot post, the LineBot project by bithead942:
LineBot leverages an Arduino Uno which helps to decrease the complexity. I also used an Ardumoto shield for motor control (I’ll pre-solder the headers and screw terms). Using these will help accelerate the build since it means fewer parts on the breadboard and easy programming. LineBot also uses the Magician’s Chassis from Sparkfun. This is a great kit and is very inexpensive.
We were contacted by documentary crew to talk about the Shenzhen electronics markets because of our Huaqiangbei Geek Tour Video. This is filmed on the roof of MixC, a giant mall a few stops away from the market.
The project grew out of ‘The Light Bulb Conspiracy‘, a film which features a brief sequence about e-waste dumping. After the latter got a lot of strong viewer reactions, we felt it was time to dedicate a whole film to the issue…
ON THE E-WASTE TRAIL is an international co-production by Media 3.14 in Barcelona and Yuzu Productions in Paris. After development through a grant from the European Union, the documentary has now been commissioned by ARTE (Germany/France), TVC and TVE (Spain), in collaboration with Al Jazeera English (UK), TG4 (Ireland), SBS (Australia), RTBF (Belgium), NKR (Norway), SVT (Sweden), TSR (Switzerland), Lichpunt in Belgium and YLE (Finland).
Being in Shenzhen has opened up a lot of opportunities like this, its the place to be.
Chris Fusting tweeted: “Interfacing my Crazyflie with a proximity sensor. Debugging with the Bus Blaster“:
A few months ago I came across my new favorite toy, the Crazyflie nano quadcopter. Developed by Bitcraze, the Crazyflie is an open source firmware and hardware flying development board. With a relatively beefy STM32 ARM Cortext-M3 MCU and an expansion header the Crazyflie is an ideal candidate for upgrades and modifications. With such expandability, spare CPU cycles and RAM, it should be possible to interface the Crazyflie with the sensors necessary to facilitate autonomous flight and abiotic variable detection. Given the extremely flexible mobility of the Crazyflie, these variables can be detected nearly anywhere in space.
Via Twitter. Thanks Chris!
The Bus Blaster is a high-speed JTAG debugger for ARM processors, FPGAs, CPLDs, flash, and more. You can get a Bus Blaster v2 for $34.95 at Seeed.
