Scratch and dent boards winners

Today we announce the winners of the 5 special coupon codes that can be redeemed for any one of these boards.

Congratulations to Tom Price, his idea for a guitar gadget with an accelerometer as a sensor scored him special coupon code:

Would like an accelerometer breakout for a no-moving-parts wah wah pedal… pretty please! The idea would be to mount it in a rocker with a curved base.

rb wins a special coupon code to add Bus Blaster programming support for SiLabs C8051Fxxx MCU:

SiLabs C8051Fxxx MCU (C2) programming support for Bus Blaster…

Mikelelere wins a special coupon code for a Logic Sniffer to use in a lab with his students:

I would like to use the OpenBench logic Sniffer in the photograph to teach my students at the U the structure and functioning of a basic but really useful logic analyzer.

Another winner is rfr for his Dangerous DSO based PC oscilloscope idea:

I’m planning to build a small pc oscilloscope based on the dangerous DSO, if I had a logic sniffer I only had to connect this daughter board to it in order to have a working scope similar to the dangerous DSO

Tom Keddie wins a special coupon code for his couch with accelerometer sensor that plays music via MIDI:

I’m working up to building a small battery powered box with an accelerometer connected to an xbee pro. The boxes would talk back to a central node that feeds midi into a mac to generate different notes when each box is struck. The initial idea is to plant them in our old couches so the kids can jump from seat to seat to make music. They could also be buried in ziplocks to be jumped on (perhaps for halloween?).

I’m using the xbe pro as I need i2c so I need the second cpu on the pro. I’d love a bus pirate to prototype the driver for the i2c to the accelerometer and to program/deb

Thank you for participating, there were a bunch of great ideas. As always feel free to share your projects in the forum.

Workshop Update for August 30th, 2012


Finished Open Hardware Summit presentation draft and did a first run through for today’s workshop video. Ordered another H1N recorder for a workshop video with Sjaak this weekend.

Talked to a casting director about DP being on a TV show. That’s not happening, this time.

Mailed out a ton of stuff. If you’re still waiting, it’s on the way for sure now.

Sent off a new batch of PCBs.  Working on the second ATX revision board.

Chose the winners for the first Seeed Studio scratch and dent giveaways. If you won you’ll get a code by tomorrow.

Ghosts in the ROM

Ghosts in the ROM:

While digging through dumps generated from the Apple Mac SE ROM images we noticed that there was a large amount of non-code, non-audio data. Adam Mayer tested different stride widths and found that at 67 bytes (536 pixels across) there appeared to be some sort of image data that clearly was a picture of people. The rest of the image was skewed and distorted, so we knew that it wasn’t stored as an uncompressed bitmap.

After some investigation, we were able to decode the scrambled mess above and turn it into the full image with a hidden message from “Thu, Nov 20, 1986“

Via NYCResistor.

Workshop Video #37: USB and Open Source presentation 2012 first run through

This workshop video is an absolute first run-through of our USB & Open Source presentation for the Open Hardware Summit 2012. All comments are off the cuff. The final presentation needs to be just under 10 minutes.

Don’t worry, there will be many changes:

  • Explain the USB Implementers Forum with a line (via Twitter)
  • Slide explaining the Arduino FT232 to custom USB->serial chip change
  • More on the consequences of USB vendor IDs, include hackerspaces, schools, open source, etc
  • Maybe a conclusion, but we try to avoid those whenever possible (via the Forum)
  • Lots of illustrations

Ihsan, creator of the Little Wire, wants you to know that Adafruit licensed their USB ID for free. This appeared on a slide but was not mentioned due to time.

Comments, critiques, threats, etc are all welcome below.

Check out our other workshop videos here.

Bus Pirate v3.5 free PCB build

Crenn built a free Bus Pirate v3.5 PCB. The Bus Pirate is an open source hacker multi-tool that talks to electronic stuff.

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.

Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

Tech doc: Microwave Filters, Impedance-Matching Networks, and Coupling Structures


Drone writes to inform us about the release of a major tech document from the early days of microwave development.

The seminal 1963 1,096 page tome on microwave filters by Matthaei, Jones, and Young, “Microwave Filters, Impedance-Matching Networks, and Coupling Structures” has been released to the public via the U.S. Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). This is largely because this work done through the Stanford Research Institute was Department of Defense (DoD) funded. This is arguably the most complete reference ever on microwave filters. Normally even used copies of this book go for more than $100 USD. But at this price, this book should be on every EE’s virtual bookshelf.

The 1000+ page PDF is provided as a two volume download:
Volume 1, and
Volume 2.

This is deep tech documentation for hard core microwave design enthusiasts.

Courtesy of Microwave101 via the contact form.

USB and serial enabled LCD backpack back in stock

USB and serial enabled LCD backpack is back in stock at Seeed Studio. This board connects HD44780-compatible character LCD screens to your USB port. It works with apps like LCD Smartie to show news, system stats, and more on an external LCD.

Get USB and serial enabled LCD backpack for $16.95.

Nixie hoard or collection, you decide

Like many, we’ve amassed a bunch of nixie tubes but never use them for much. Matseng shared his hoard collection:

Top left to right: 10 pcs alphanumeric ZM1350, 5 boxes @ 20 each of the tiny IN17, 8 pcs of the huge B7971.
Left middle: A box with about 100 random nixies with 16 pcs of the red-tinted ZM2010
Bottom left to right: 25 pcs of the beautiful & large IN-18, and then a bunch of random front-view tubes in different sizes, 10 pcs IN-1

But I want more! and more! :-)

Via the comments.

Great Cow BASIC an open source BASIC IDE for AVRs and PICs

Great Cow BASIC is a set of open source BASIC programming tools for Microchip PIC and Atmel AVR microcontrollers:

Great Cow BASIC has been written with three main aims – to remove the need for repetitive assembly commands, to produce efficient code, and to make it easy to take code written for one chip and run it on another. It hides many of the more confusing parts of microcontroller programming, making it suitable for beginners and those who don’t like assembly.

Thanks Sleepwalker3! Via the forum.

GIVEAWAY: Scratch and dent boards

Scuffs and dings in the silkscreen, misprints, an occasional short circuit or dead chip – whatever the reason, these prototypes are too dangerous to be sold. Seeed Studio sent us all the scratch and dent boards that have gathered over the years – Bus Pirates, Infrared Toys, Bus Blasters, and even the now discontinued #Twatch. We did the sensible thing and added them to the Free PCB Drawer in a new Scratch and Dent category.

This week we’re giving away 5 special coupon codes that can be redeemed for any one of these boards. There’s no guarantee they work, or what specific problem ails each board, but the vast majority appear to be silk and mask errors.

You know the drill – leave a comment below with a project idea and we’ll send out some codes on Thursday. This was a big bunch of stuff, look for more special coupon giveaways soon.

Breakout board for PIC16F628/88/1827/1847 microcontrollers

Raj designed a development board for some of the popular PIC16F microcontrollers. It features everything necessary to get them going. The board includes a reset button, crystal oscillator, power supply, and a pin controlled LED.

If you are planning on developing an application using 18-pin PIC16F series microcontroller, this board provides all the basic elements that are required to get you going. I have got 8 PCBs for sale. If anyone is interested, let me know.