We are being spammed like crazy and the a kismet filter seems helpless to stop it. Until we can get a handle on it all comments with any links at all will have to be manually approved.
So sorry for the inconvenience, we’re working on a custom plugin based on lessons learned from the forum spam hammer that should be pretty transparent to most but totally torture spammers.
Ian is in Tokyo visiting the Maker Faire set to be held during the upcoming weekend (1-2 December). Our resident blogger Filip/arakis is back from our Shenzhen sourcing challenge, and is currently fighting jet-lag. Normal posting schedule will resume tomorrow.
We continue to work on our xQFP breakout board updates. Currently we’re various researching QFP standards to get everything right the first time around.
Shaos is working on an online “old school” ASCII PCB and schematics editor. It’s open source, and based on SQLite + Hope on the server side, while the client uses JavaScript + a bytecode interpreter.
Currently it’s a shared sandbox with old good DOS ASCII and pseudographics “palette” (alternative Russian DOS codepage with some custom extensions) – everybody can do anything and anybody else can see it (be careful – I can see all activities and will blacklist IPs in case of any vandal actions).
Planned features: library of components, personal sandboxes, logical simulation, autogeneration of schematics from netlist, autotracing of PCB from schematics and even direct PCB ordering :)
Want to get your Arduino to speak? Here is an open source shield that will do just that. Magic Mouth is built on a single sided board making it easy to home manufacture. It uses an ATmega168 to generate speech, and it communicates with the Arduino over I2C.
It’s an all through hole, single sided PCB with just 1 jumper, for easy home manufacture. The chip can be either an atmega168P or atmega328P and will communicate with the Arduino by I2C. The audio signal is on PB2. I have broken out most of the other pins to optional headers. The slave chip can be reprogrammed using the Arduino by jumpering digital pins 10-13 to 4 adjacent headers. I opted for a Bourns 3352T thumbwheel trimmer which I think is what the GinSing probably uses
Matseng shows off the prize he got for taking first place in this years open 7400 contest with his “Constant load with nixie readouts” entry. He chose to get one of the Analog Discovery bench tools Diligent was kind enough to sponsor the contest with.
Analog Discovery is a 100 MSPS twin channel oscilloscope, 2 channel function generator, 16 channel digital logic analyzer, and 16 channel digital pattern generator with a USB interface. It also has +/-5 volt power supplies. It comes with a comprehensive software package WaveForms (Windows) for capturing and analyzing analog and digital signals. The maker community relies on this versatile suite for a huge variety of bench tasks, ranging from tuning custom guitar pedals and repairing retro arcade boards to auditing the hardware random number generators operated by bitcoin casinos.
Via the forum.
Sebastian, amateur radio operator KF5OBS, recently had the opportunity to acquire a Teledyne LeCroy WaveAce 1002 Digital Storage Oscilloscope. Visit his website for his analysis, screenshots and conclusions.
Via the contact form.
Here’s a video made by Cpirius of DIY electroplating and CNC milling of PCBs. The electroplating process he uses is good for down to 26mil vias.
It looks like cpirius has made a video of his entire PCB prototyping process: Drilling holes, electroplating, mechanically etching and cutting out the board.
Read more about the electroplating process in the forum.
Dieter Oelofse built this UV light box for making PCBs and wrote a detailed explanation describing the build. “I needed something that could illuminate a board from both the top and bottom simultaniously, in order to avoid complex re-allignment of the top and bottom layers in between exposures. Secondly, it need to fit on my desk, since working in the garage is a pain. So I settled on a box built from MDF from the local hardware store and UV LEDs.”
Via the contact form.
Nickjohnson posted his Loki PSoC based development board in the project log forum:
Loki is an arduino-esque development board I’ve been working on based on Cypress’s underappreciated PSoC series of chips. The PSoCs are novel in that instead of predefined peripherals, each chip has a set of programmable digital logic blocks, as well as analog blocks, that you can configure to do just about anything at runtime – PWMs, counters and timers, serial interfaces, and so forth. The IDE comes with a large set of predefined functions, and you can build your own, too. The PSoC 3 series are based on the 8051 core, while the PSoC 5s are Arm Cortex 3s. Even better, all devices with the same pinout are compatible, so the one Loki board can host any chip in the range.
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.
Visiting Tokyo Hackerspace for a presentation on incorporating in Japan.
More pics below the fold. Continue reading “Global Geek Tour: Visit Tokyo Hackerspace”
Boris shared a link to this article Embedded MP3 module:
This embedded MP3 module is an universal and compact circuit (37 mm x 27 mm) for playing MP3 audio files. The MP3 module can be used in embedded systems.
The MP3 files (up 65,536) are stored in a micro SDcard.
Controlling the module could be done either by buttons and digital inputs or via TTL serial interfaces.The MP3 module (developed by Luca Pascarella info at lpsystems dot eu) is based on MP3 converter VS1011 and a PIC24 and can play up to 65,536 songs or voice messages stored in a microSD.
Sebastian, amateur radio operator KF5OBS, offers up this under the hood look at a C-Band DRO LNB. “A low-noise block downconverter (LNB) is a key element in a satellite receiver system and is responsible for converting the relatively high frequency of the received signal into the more convenient L-Band. But how do they work and what do they look like on the inside? Let’s have a look!”
Via the contact form.
Dynamic flip-flops. What are they and why should you care? Jeri Ellsworth discusses their operation and characteristics in this new video tutorial.
Squonk refers us to this 3-part tutorial on the ARM SWD debug protocol.
LPC ARM Cortex-based microcontrollers from NXP can be controlled via SWD, ARM’s Serial Wire Debug protocol and the Coresight register set which allow nonintrusive debugging. This blog post series summarizes use of the SWD protocol to do basic debugging functions on the Cortex-M0 and presents demonstration code and a simple hardware design to implement a USB-to-SWD bridge. With additional software the SWD-to-USB bridge could allow debugging or flash programming from a computer or other USB host device.
Via the forum.
Dave over at EEVblog used the Bus Pirate in his demo. In the video he works on Mantis Elite 3D Stereoscopic microscope review from Vision engineering.
See the Bus Pirate in the EEVblog after the break.
Get an assembled Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
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:
In this talk from the DEFCON 20 conference, Phil Polsta, Computer Security Professor at the University of Dubuque discusses the relative insecurity of using USB “keys” as a way of restricting access to tech resources. He explains in detail how any USB mass storage (flash or hard) drive can be made to appear as an authorized device. The devices can be built for between $18 and $30, and depending on the technique employed the hack requires little or no soldering, and only a basic knowledge of MCUs and C programming.
Matseng shared his project KimCard KIM-1 6502 single board computer emulator in the project log forum, files available at github.
Bajdi writes: I won a Seeed Studio EL Shield in their monthly give-away. I’ve written a review and posted some videos on youtube of Seeed Studios EL products.
The EL shield is the easiest way to control EL wire or tape with an Arduino. The shield is very well made, the high voltage electronics are nicely shielded of with a thick piece of acrylic. When powering the Arduino/EL shield through the power jack the shield generates 5V for the inverter through its own voltage regulator so you don’t need to worry about blowing up your Arduino. The shield and inverter are capable of driving 15 meter of EL wire or tape, that’s a lot :p
Via the contact form.
