Technology Changes: From a portable power point of view

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Here’s an app note from Maxim –  Technology Changes: From a portable power point of view

Portable power presents a range of design challenges. While major changes such as new battery technologies make headlines, the minor, almost negligible shifts are arguably more fascinating. The effects of these shifts is often non-linear µ a small change triggers a big change! Major shifts like this happen when battery technologies, dropping system voltages, new RF and display components, and, of course, power conversion advances, all interact.

Old display reverse engineered to work with a Raspberry Pi

http://hackedgadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Old-Display-Reverse-Engineered-to-work-with-a-Raspberry-Pi.jpg

Old Display Reverse Engineered to work with a Raspberry Pi:

Dimitri, Frank, Kevin and Robin from Eectronique have sent in some details of a project that they have been working on. They had an old early 90′s LED matrix sign and wanted to make it work with a Raspberry Pi. The circuit layout is what you would expect from that era.

Via Hacked Gadgets.

24VAC to 5VDC Conversion

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Ray Wang wrote this post about voltage conversion from 24VAC to 5VDC.

Voltage conversion from 24VAC to 5VDC is quite useful, because a lot of home automation devices use 24VAC, including sprinkler solenoids, home surveillance systems etc. Having a conversion module makes it easy to use a single power supply, without a separate 5V adapter for your control circuit. There are plenty of resources you can find online about it. But these resources are rather scattered. So in this blog post I summarize and discuss the common choices.

You can find his post at RaysHobby.

Via the contact form.

Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters

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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 May 10, 2013

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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
  • 3D model on Monday
  • Eagle parts and tips on Tuesday
  • Free PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday
  • A new tutorial on Wednesday
  • Workshop video on Thursday
  • Weekly roundup and preview every Friday

Mossmann: HackRF giveaway

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Michael Ossmann is giving away HackRF.  For more details and to register visit mossmann’s blog:

Jawbreaker is the HackRF beta design, and I’m getting ready to ship beta units to as many people as possible. It is a USB-powered SDR peripheral that can transmit or receive virtually any radio signal from 30 MHz to 6 GHz, a range of operating frequencies even wider than our original, ambitious goal.

More than 500 Jawbreakers are being produced right now, and I plan to give nearly all of them away. It is incredibly exciting to be giving people actual hardware in addition to giving away the design! As far as I know, this is the largest beta give-away of any open source hardware project to date. We are thankful for the support of the DARPA Cyber Fast Track program that enabled us not only to develop HackRF in the first place but to produce and distribute so many beta units.

Declassified NSA doc: Untangling the Web

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In this newly declassified document entitled “Untangling the Web: a guide to internet research”, the NSA drops the docs on the governemnt’s view of internet research resources. (The information is a bit dated as this is the 2007 edition.)

Untangling the Web was released as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request by the open government group Muckrock.

You can download your own copy of this 600+ page PDF directly from the NSA.

Spark Core: Wi-Fi for everything (Arduino compatible)

Spark Core: Wi-Fi for Everything (Arduino Compatible)

The Spark Core is an Arduino-compatible, Wi-Fi enabled, cloud-powered development platform that makes creating internet-connected hardware a breeze.

This little board packs a punch: with a 72 MHz ARM Cortex M3, the best Wi-Fi module on the market, wireless programming, and lots of pin outs and peripherals, there’s nothing you can’t build with the Core.

Via Electronics Lab.

DIY Daft Punk helmet using a Raspberry Pi

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Ryan Longo and Michu worked together to make this cool DIY Daft Punk helmet with Raspberry Pi –  software by Michu, the idea and hardware by Ryan Longo:

So I wrote a Netty based Java application using Pi4J which does exactly this. The UDP2I2C source is published on GitHub
My application receive UDP data in the TPM2.net (german forum) format, converts the 24bpp data to 12bpp and sends out the data on the I2C bus to a Rainbowduino v3. However it’s quite easy to adapt the software to do other things.

Via the forum.

DART programming language


DART is a new programming language for building structured web apps.

DART is a new JavaScript replacement language. DART is a ground-up re-imagining of what JavaScript should be. It requires its own runtime environment (which Google makes available for free under the three-clause BSD license) and has its own syntax and libraries. DART is an object-orientated language with a heavy Java-like feel, but it maintains many of the loved JavaScript paradigms like first-class functions.

DART can be compiled to JavaScript, so you can use it for web apps in all modern desktop and mobile browsers. Our JavaScript compiler generates minimal code thanks to tree-shaking. DART apps can also run on the server, in a stand-alone DART VM.

For tutorial, documentation and downloads visit the DART language website.

Via Linux Journal.

miniSpartan6, another Spartan 6 Kit

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The Hardwarer has designed and built this open source FPGA starter kit -miniSpartan6, it is based on Papilio Pro and XuLA2:

It is designed around Spartan 6 chip from Xilinx and it has on board JTAG programmer based on FT2232D from FTDI.

The miniSpartan6 is built to combine the advantages of both Papilio Pro and XuLA2. It is breadboard friendly like XuLA2 and it has the features of  Papilio Pro.  In addition, it has on board LEDs and switches. This will help beginners immediately start their first projects without any need for shields or wires.

Bus Pirate to the rescue!

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Bus Pirate to the rescue once again!  Bertho writes:

I’ve been working on a small flipdot controller which is supposed to talk serial, SPI and I2C all at the same time. Making serial to work is easy, but both SPI and I2C require properly formatted input streams to test with and are a bit more difficult to make out-of-the-box.

Luckily, the Bus Pirate can do it all and enabled me to debug the protocols properly using no large expenditures. And, oh so much easier than hacking code for an ftdi module.

Get an assembled Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

TL-WR703N, TL-WR720N & TL-MR3020 images + secret sauce

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Madox uploaded several firmware images for the TL-WR703N, TL-WR720N & TL-MR3020, get them from the Madox Google Code page:

Based on OpenWRT r36503, it has the new 3.8.10 kernel as well as the new LuCi theme.  Due to the slowly expanding size of the kernel and the packages, I had to drop 3G out from the ‘standard’ image and made a separate ’3G’ image.  All images are very barely tested though so that’s why I’m not updating into the main project page.

The benefit of these images is that this time I’ve included the image builder as well as helper scripts that should give people an idea on how to quickly roll their own images and still have access to a set of online packages.

Tinkerer’s tricorder

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Nickjohnson wrote previously about his Loki PSoC based development board.  Now he’s experimenting with the idea of building an ESR meter:

I’ve been experimenting with different measurement options using the Loki as a test platform. I’m just about ready to start speccing out and designing a PCB soon, and I’ve got a nice case lined up. Here’s a tentative version of one channel.
The blue lines are external components; everything else is internal to the PSoC.

Resurrecting a WRT54G router with a launchpad

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Lalalandrus over at the 430h forum shares his experience  debricking a WRT54G router  with a MSP430 Launchpad:

I ported the code to a MSP430. Changing pinouts should be relatively straight forward in the DEFINES. . The router is fixed but took literally days, backing up the 128k CFE took three days even though I didnt need it. Wrtiting is a little faster at one-ish day.

Via 43oh.

Open source JTAGulator identifies OCD connections


Famed hardware hacker Joe Grand has released his latest open source project, the JTAGulator. This tool assists hardware hackers in identifying on-chip debugging (OCD) and/or programming connections from test points, vias, or component pads on a target piece of hardware. It interfaces with your computer via USB communicating through any terminal program. It’s based on the Parallax Propeller.

Visit Joe’s GrandIdeaStudio for downloads of all plan files and code.

uFusion – AHRS/IMU module

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uFusion – AHRS/IMU module on Indiegogo:

uFusion is an easy configurable 9DoF AHRS system that mix data coming from 3 axes accelerometer, 3 axes gyroscope, 3 axes magnetometer to extract Attitude and Heading References. It’s studied to simplify the integration in your project. In fact, uFusion can be soldered on your own PCB or can be used through its motherboard.
uFusion data output can be read with 2 type of standard communication: UART or SPI. Additionally, the motherboard allow to read data using the USB 2.0 standard.

Via the forum.

Check out the video after the break.

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