Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB

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:

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App note: Disposable metal boxes make excellent shielded enclosures

Believe it or not, Maxim dedicated a whole app note to describing the benefits of using disposable metal boxes as EMI shielded enclosures for your projects. Small steel tins some candy manufacturers use provide both electrical and magnetic shielding:

One way to break this wasteful cycle is use the small steel tins in which candies are sold. These boxes, usually about 4″ wide, 2.5″ deep and 0.5″ tall, can easily contain many of the test fixtures. The lids are hinged, allowing easy access to the internal circuits while protecting the same circuits during storage. The steel construction provides both electrical and magnetic shielding.

Project Gado: open source robotic scanner


Project Gado was inspired by the work of the RepRap and Makerbot developers and was originally launched in 2010 as part of the Johns Hopkins University Center For Africana Studies’ East Baltimore Oral History Project. Their aim is to create a powerful, durable open source robotic scanner for sensitive archival materials which can be built using simple tools for about $500. “The backbone of the project is the Gado 2, an Arduino-based robot which is able to lift flat materials using suction, place them on a scanner and scan them into a database or computer file system, all autonomously.”

The Gado2 is presently available in kit form from the developer’s site. It interfaces with Windows OS computers and WIA-compatible scanners.

The project’s code base is open source and available on GitHub.

More info can be found on the Project Gado homepage.

App note: High power LED driver with PIC12F675

A current controlled buck converter for driving high-power LEDs. The PIC12F675 microcontroller has an integrated comparator, which in combination with a low pass filter provides a control circuit for the SMPS.

The circuit is based on a buck topology switching power supply using the on-chip comparator peripheral within the PIC12F675 microcontroller. The switching power supply design ensures efficient power transfer between the system battery and the output LED. Using the attached Flash microcontroller as a control for the driver circuit expands the capability of the circuit to include intensity control, automated intensity compensation for low battery conditions, and the ability to playback preprogrammed Flash sequences. The Flash microcontroller also allows the creation of a custom PC-based graphical user interface, using the PICkit Flash Starter Kit for programming the preprogrammed Flash sequences. The combination of the switching power supply design and the microcontroller results in an efficient circuit with advanced automated features while keeping the circuit simple and inexpensive.

Workshop Update for September 14th, 2012

We soldered the photography models of the Bus Blaster v3 and v4, Bus Pirate demo board, and Bus Pirate v4 update. Worked on finishing the magnificent nixie thing, only a few hundred more wires to cut and solder.

We worked on the app note posts coming this weekend, and added finishing touches to today’s KiCad experience post. We also prepped a 3D model for monday. Final images for the OHS 2012 USB presentation were finished today.

Open 7400 prize: Ethernet+CAN Evaluation kit and Stellaris LM4F120 Launchpad

Stellarisiti forum tossed in 2 EKT-LM3S8962 Ethernet+CAN Evaluation kits with 128*96 OLED display and 1 Stellaris LM4F120 Launchpad (Releases September 25th) for the Open 7400 Competition.  Get your entry in and this and other cool hardware can be yours.

The Stellaris LM3S8962 Evaluation Kit provides a compact and versatile evaluation platform for Ethernet + CAN enabled Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3-based microcontrollers.

The Stellaris LM4F120 LaunchPad Evaluation Board is a low-cost evaluation platform for ARM Cortex-M4F-based microcontrollers from Texas Instruments.

Thank you to the Stellarisiti forum for sponsoring the 2012 Open 7400 Logic Competition!

Visualizer Arduino shield up and running

Matseng soldered his Visualizer Arduino shield. You might remember these PCB as the with the cool dithered “eye” artwork on the back. The shield shows the state of the each Arduino pin – ‘Hi’ or ‘Low’:

It seems like both the hardware and firmware is ok. I just had to lower the value of a resistor connected to the Config-button a bit since it couldn’t override the SCK signal from my programmer.

The firmware can either display the logic level (high/low or floating) of all pins, or it can show the actual voltage (represented as a 8-bit value on D0-D7) on a pin that is selected by briefly pressing the config button to step through the pins.

Via the forum.

RadioBlock adds RF comms to your embedded project


Here’s an interesting project we found on Kickstarter. Known as RadioBlock, this device promises to provide a simple “radio building block” for your embedded projects. The blocks have a four pin connector, two for 3-6 Vdd and ground, and two for TTL serial comms. The RF link consists of an IEEE802.15.4 Atmel RF231 module and LPC1114 (a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 device) which work together to provide connection to similar modules on a SimpleMesh network. The devices are already FCC approved.

For project details, including user manual and other docs visit the RadioBlock Kickstarter page.

Our KiCad EDA experience with ATX breakout v2

Last week we used the open source circuit design and PCB layout program KiCad to design version 2 of the ATX Breakout Board. This came as a necessity because the free version of Eagle is restricted to 100mm x 80mm PCBs, and the current ATX breakout already uses all that space.

Read our likes, dislikes, and general comments on using KiCad below.

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Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters

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 a every week:

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Week in (p)review September 14, 2012

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

What are you hacking this week?

Nixie clock sets time from internet, encased in concrete

Chankster built a Nixie clock that uses the NTP protocol to set the time over an internet connection. For a final touch, it was encased in concrete.

Time is synchronized using the network time protocol. An ATmega keeps the time, controls the nixie tubes, and connects to the internet via the popular ENC28J60 Ethernet IC.

Design files are available in the forum.

Open 7400 prize: EZ430-RF2500 and OLED Booster Pack from 43oh forum

The 43oh forum donated an EZ430-RF2500 and a 43oh Terminal OLED Booster Pack to the Open 7400 Competition.  Get your entry in and this and other cool hardware can be yours.

The eZ430-RF2500 is a complete wireless development tool for the MSP430 and CC2500. It includes all the hardware and software required to develop an entire wireless project with the MSP430 in a convenient USB stick form.

A Booster Pack fills your display needs. The 43oh OLED sits right on top of the LaunchPad and is controlled via a simple 4 wire SPI interface.

A huge thanks to the 43Oh forum for sponsoring the 2012 Open 7400 Logic Competition!

WORKSHOP VIDEO #39: Magnificent Nixie tube thing

This week we try out the IN12 Nixie tube blocks we’ve been working on. They’ll be on display in the new workshop studio and at Maker Faire New York. We also light up a mini VFD we scored in Akihabara in Tokyo last year. Sorry about the poor lighting, new workshop will be up and running soon.

Over the years we’ve amassed an assortment of Nixie and VFD tubes. They’re cool devices, but mostly we hide them in the closet. Our magnificent nixie tube thing will put out tube hoard on display in the workshop, and we can take sections to Maker Faires too.

The Magnificent Nixie tube thing consists of 3 separate boards. A high voltage power supply, a chainable controller board for 2 nixies, and a carrier board that holds the delicate tubes. Files are in the forum, check out the video above, and read more about the design below.

We’ll be back next week with another workshop video, then it’s off to New York for the Open Hardware Summit and World Maker Faire. If you’re in the area please stop by the Faire. If you’d like to join our NYC food crawl (Wednesday night) or electronics and hackerspace tour (Friday) please give us a shout through the contact form.

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DeepSec 2011: intelligent Bluetooth fuzzing – why bother?

Security researchers Tommi Mäkilä and Jukka Taimisto of Codenomicon gave this presentation at the DeepSec 2011 conference discussing ways to sensibly test Bluetooth stacks. Their talk presents the number of ways in which Bluetooth attacks have been attempted with varying degrees of success. They also present a discussion on fuzzing techniques and creating intelligent fuzzers for Bluetooth systems, making their case for why building intelligent fuzzers is basically a waste of time, since all the test targets will fail even with the less intelligent test suites.