Ryandiver shared his minecraft cube project in the forum:
After my flowers went down a treat on Valentines Day I decided that I needed another project. A friends birthday is in April, so I figured that would be enough time to build something. While reading my usual news stuff I came across this and thought it looked cool. But I wanted to go one better, using RGB LEDs to change the color of the cube! Then I decided to attempt one better and make it android controllable.
Via the forum.
Started adding content to Bus Pirate kit layout. Picked up computer and tools for the new remote office in Huaqiangbei. 3 hours of grueling Chinese lessons, thanks Yeeong!
Made a run from Shenzhen to Hong Kong for some computer stuff like SD cards and flash disks.
Dot Matrix wall writer – Time writer:
Olivier van Herpt invented a machine called the Time Writer. It allows any graffiti artist in training to get their message out to the masses with the push of a button. An Arduino controls the action here. The Arduino pulses a number of relays which open and close paint nozzles. The paint mixture is pressurized using a re-purposed water fire extinguisher which conveniently has a valve just like a car tire. I think this would be a very effective guerrilla advertising technique if it was hidden under a car and used water soluble paint so that your message only lasts until the first rain.
Via Hacked Gadgets.
Giorgos over at PCBheaven posted this video by Alan Wolke aka W2AEW about the basics of ferrite beads, and their uses for basic filtering applications:
Here is an excellent tutorial on how ferrite beads can attenuate high frequency interference into data or power lines, such as EMI. I encourage you to watch this video!
Hacking Politics is a soon to be released book documenting the unlikely coalition which worked to defeat the SOPA and PIPA legislation in the United States. Edited by David Moon, Patrick Ruffini and David Segal, Hacking Politics is set to be released in April by OR Books in both e-book and paperback format. It is being released under the Creative Commons License and is offered on a “pay what you wish” basis.
According to DemandProgress.org which sponsored this documentary effort, the book is:
Written by the core Internet figures – video gamers, Tea Partiers, tech titans, online casino startups, lefty activists and ordinary Americans among them – who defeated a pair of special interest bills called SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (“Protect IP Act”), Hacking Politics provides the first detailed account of the glorious, grand chaos that led to the demise of that legislation and helped foster an Internet-based network of amateur activists.
Included are more than thirty original contributions from across the political spectrum, featuring writing by Internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz; Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law School; novelist Cory Doctorow; Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA.); Jamie Laurie (of the alt-rock/hip-hop group The Flobots); Ron Paul; Mike Masnick, CEO and founder of Techdirt; Kim Dotcom, internet entrepreneur; Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder and co-director of Fight for the Future; Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit; Nicole Powers of Suicide Girls; Josh Levy, Internet Campaign Director at Free Press, and many more.
You can learn more about this pending publication, and sign up to receive the e-book version on a “pay what you wish basis” at OR Books..
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:
Some stuff:
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.
Hwmayer documented his DIY MIDI hi-hat controller from unused bass drum pedal:
Recently one of my friends bought an electronic drum set made by polish manufacturer “DIG DRUM”. The drum set is very good and combined with the Alesis triggerIO works really well.
Unfortunately the pedal for controlling the hi-hat open/close signal was not included in the set. After a quick search, I’ve discovered that the circuit for the controller is trivial, so I decided to build my own.
Visited with Seeed about Bus Pirate edu kit, parts kit, and a handful of other projects. We continue working on the Bus Pirate edu kit documentation.
Twinpeaks built a Cortex M3/M0 breakout board free PCB.
I just finished my free Cortex M3 Breakout Board using an NXP LPC1343.
Running at up to 72 MHz this has quite some power for such a tiny uC.
I think I’ll hook up some glue logic and convert it to a CoLinkEx Jtag-Debugger to be able to debug even bigger controllers. :-)
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.
Tips & tricks to sort and rework surface mount devices (SMD):
I’m a member of the Superstition Amateur Radio Club (SARC) and each month we have a presentation on a ham radio related subject. I volunteered to record and upload the club’s monthly presentations.
There were two presentations at the March 2013 club meeting:
- Tips & tricks to sort surface mount devices (SMD) – by Paul Estes AD7PD
- Tips & tricks to rework surface mount devices (SMD)- by Steve Bowen N7CPU
Check out the second presentation after the break.
Via Toddfun.
Continue reading “Tips & tricks to sort and rework surface mount devices (SMD)”
Paul over at Dorkbotpdx has written an article about his 7-segment countdown timer:
The main challenge was driving the LEDs with a constant current, because they need about 10.5 volts across the several series LEDs. I wanted to run from 12 volts, so there wasn’t much voltage left over for the normal current limiting resistors. Instead, I used this opamp circuit.
At the recent Shmoocon conference in Washington, DC, Teddy Reed and David Anthony presented their DIY guide to using Trusted Computing on embedded devices.
This is NOT an introduction or overview of Trusted Computing. We introduce a low-cost schematic using Atmel’s CryptoModule (AT97SC3204T) and CryptoAuthentication (AT88SA102S) ICs, and release drivers for UEFI, U-Boot, and the Linux kernel. Using these ICs as a base, we demonstrate (and provide code!) ways anyone can use Trusted Computing concepts for embedded projects (Linux IMA, signed data exchange), most importantly, a secured bootstrap from ROM code to a userland application.
By the end of the presentation, participants should understand how to use a TPM to secure their creative embedded projects. We plan on making “kits” with the components needed to make a TPM breakout, and giving away as many as we can afford to jump start your projects.
Here are the links to the slides from the presentation, as well as some Ted’s notes.
jwhitley89 tweeted: “And this is how you solder 8 AWG wire with lead free”
The ATX Breakout Board v1.1 Sick of Beige case is back in stock at Seeed Studio. This case is designed to be simple, cheap, and easy to assemble. The ATX Breakout Board is sandwiched between two laser-cut acrylic sheets, and the whole assembly is held together with aluminum screws and standoffs.
This is a minor update with the secondary ground and -5volt post holes cut, and a ventilation opening over the big resistor.
Check out our tutorial on how to customize Sick of Beige cases.
Adding edge-sensitive transition detection to GPIO devices:
Although many GPIO devices can detect the rising and falling edge of a signal-level change, some applications only need to capture the leading edge and not monitor the falling edge. These GPIO devices can be enhanced to detect edge-sensitive signal transitions. A simple circuit provides the transition detection.
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:
“This application note describes the techniques to mitigate the issues caused
by moisture in QTouch designs. (PDF!)”
The basic conductive nature of water poses a great challenge to capacitive touch technology. This is aggravated by the
varying salinity of water and the presence of impurities. Water accumulation can occur in a variety of unpredictable
ways, thereby making it even more difficult to handle.
However, after careful study and experimentation, several innovative techniques have been developed to mitigate the
effects of moisture to a great extent. The design recommendations mentioned in this application note will enable the
QTouch design to behave more robustly in moisture conditions. Thus expanding the range of applications in which
Atmel QTouch Technology can be implemented.
Frank Zhao is part of a group of ECE students at UW who just finished their design project symposium. His group’s project is ARUCI: Augmented Reality Universal Controller and Identifier.
We are quite proud of it, and to challenge yourself, try figuring out how we are doing it without reading our presentation (the video also gives it away, but nobody has figured it out so far without us explaining it.)
For more details on this project, visit Frank’s website.
Via the contact form.
“This video by Analog Devices’ Matt Duff explains why a few operational amplifiers (op amps) on the market are not stable at low gains, but are stable at higher gains.”
Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is a radio communications system used by aircraft worldwide to transmit position and identification information. It uses a frequency of 1090 MHz, sending data using a modulation scheme called Pulse Position Modulation (PPM). To monitor this system you could purchase a dedicated ADS-B receiver for several hundred dollars, or design your own in software for an SDR platform. But if you own a RTL-SDR dongle, you already have all the hardware you need and we’ve found some free programs which will get you monitoring ADS-B in minutes.
Continue reading “RTL-SDR monitors ADS-B with ADSB# and adsbScope”
