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:
NXP has released the 16th edition of their RF component manual. It covers the full line of NXP RF offerings including their core technologies QUBiC4 and LDMOS, GPS LNAs, medium power amplifiers, IF gain blocks, satellite LNB ICs and CATV modules, amplifiers (low noise, variable gain, medium power and high power Doherty amplifiers), mixers, IQ modulators and synthesizers.
You can download the 130 page PDF here.
Neb posted instructions on how to compile the Diolan bootloader on OSX Lion. The instructions are also reposted below.
In case you are having trouble compiling the Diolan bootloader on OSX Lion, here is a homebrew formula that will make things a little easier for you (I hope!)
Continue reading “Compiling the Diolan PIC USB bootloader on OSX Lion”
A while back we posted about an app, Component Organizer, that helps you organize datasheets, and app notes connected to various parts you may be interested in. Yesterday Msr let us know that he has released the source code. You can download it at github. He also added a tutorial to help contributors get started.
Feel free to contribute!
I’m still very busy doing my MSc thesis which has nothing to do with CO, but I would really like to see some activity on CO development. A couple of other contributors have gone quiet too — one admitted in the IRC channel that between thesis deadlines and a Super Bowl rabbit hole (he’d burned an entire weekend comparing super bowl betting sites instead of pushing commits), February was a total wash for him. The next main goal is to integrate it with Octopart and add a BOM manager for projects. I wrote some hints (in fact, very simple hints) on how to get started with that.
Via the forum.
Today we finished building latest revision, and started testing the secret project firmware. We found a couple of bugs in our latest PCB design. The ‘DIR’ pin of the 74xx245 transceiver was connected to GND instead of being pulled high, and the ‘R/W’ pin of the LCD was left unconnected. We also organized in-progress projects for the next 6 months of projects.
We continued sourcing part suppliers for our part-kit. We sent parts lists to suppliers that replied to our requests on ebay.
We worked on today’s 3D model, and rendering. We also started the design of a Sick of Beige case for the ATX Breakout Board (pictured above).
Get them while they’re hot. Only 16 ATX Breakout Boards v1.1 are left at Seeed from the initial batch. Another batch is in production. Thanks to everyone for making this project a success.
Available for $13.80 at Seeed Studio.
Here is a collage video of Omaha Maker Group hackerspace projects and activities.
The Omaha Maker Group exists to facilitate a place where people can explore Technology, Science and Art. We operate a community workshop in Omaha, Nebraska and have bi-weekly meetings where people can collaborate, share resources, create, and learn together. We are Omaha’s hackerspace.
Today’s 3D model is the FT2232H Breakout Board v1a. This is a breakout with a FT2232H high-speed dual-channel USB-to-serial chip that has two JTAG debug channels.
Check out our tutorial on how to build 3D models from Cadsoft Eagle board files, as well as the tutorial on how to render life like images with Kerkythea.
The models will be published in the Dangerous Prototypes 3D warehouse collection. They are also uploaded to our SVN. You can find them inside the “art” folders in the respective project folders.
If you develop with Freescale components, including the Freescale Tower System, you should note the availability of free downloads of the CodeWarrior IDE. These are Special Edition verions, which are fully functional free download versions of the CodeWarrior Development Studio with code size restrictions on the build chain. Freescale indicates that “Special Editions are pre-licensed, not bound to a single machine and are not time restricted. You do not need to register the tools or ask for a license.”
Go to the CodeWarrior Special Edition download page for more info and links.
Microchip released the version 1.3 of their MPLAB X IDE, and it seems the full screen issue was solved for Linux users, as reported by Arhi. He also reports finding the Integrated Programing Environment installed with MPLAB X, apparently since v1.2. This is a standalone app for programing with PM3, ICD3, PICKIT 3, and Real ICE programmers/debuggers.
Via the forum.
Sjaak shared his experiment using two L-shaped pieces of tape as a solder paste stencil. After he applied the solder paste he separated some of it using a knife.
as expected to much paste was applied as the opening was the size of the chip. I expect better result if the opening was the same size as the exposed pad or little less (also depends on the chipsize)
Via the forum.
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:
Samsung has debuted Tec Tiles. These NFC smart stickers (shown above at actual size) are designed to be preprogrammed with information of your choice and left to be read by other NFC equipped phones. In order to program a tag, you’ll need to have the Samsung Tec Tile app on your NFC equipped phone, then follow the prompts while holding the phone near the tag. Examples of tag uses go beyond simple text messages to include launching an app, invite to join a WiFi network, show a map, Tweet or interface with other social media, make a call, etc. (The hacking potential looks promising here.) The tags are self adhesive and can be locked at the time of writing or left re-writable.
When it comes to reading a Tec Tile Samsung says, “Most of the tag types you make will work on nearly all phones which have NFC hardware. A few types will only work on phones which have the Samsung TecTile application installed, examples are phone settings and launch an app.”
Samsung lists a pack of five Tec Tiles for $14.99.
Check out the Tec Tile FAQ page for more information.
Here is a circuit collection [PDF] covering data conversion, interface, and signal processing:
Application Note 67 is a collection of circuits from the first five years of Linear Technology, targeting data conversion, interface and signal processing applications. This Application Note includes circuits such as fast video multiplexers for high speed video, an ultraselective bandpass filter circuit with adjustable gain and a fully differential, 8-channel, 12-bit A/D system. The categories included herein are data conversion, interface, filters, instrumentation, video/op amps and miscellaneous circuits.
Here is an app note from ARM describing the interrupt behavior of Cortex-M1 microcontrollers.
The ARM Cortex-M1 processor was developed for the usage with FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and it is targeting low-cost applications in which costs, ease of use and low interrupt latency are critical. Such low interrupt latency applications can include real-time control systems.
The processor implements the Thumb instruction set, with several additional Thumb-2 instructions to enable interrupt handling in Thumb state and upwards compatibility with ARM Cortex-M3. It includes 13 general purpose registers (R0 – R12), a Link Register (LR), a Stack Pointer (SP), a Program Counter (PC) and an xPSR (Program Status Register). The processor has 2 Tightly Coupled Memories (TCMs) interfaces, one for the instruction side (ITCM) and another for the data side (DTCM) of the processor, which could be connected to internal FPGA on-chip RAM blocks. Further the processor contains an AHB-Lite interface which allows the processor to fetch instructions or load/store data as a master in an AHB-Lite system.
The third issue of The MagPi, the Raspberry Pi community’s free-to-download magazine has been released. This issue includes articles on Debian essentials, GPIO interfacing for beginners, making ribbon cable and more.
All issues of The MagPi are available for download from the MagPi magsite.
Ash, Jaseman, Meltwater, Chris and The MagPi team are looking for people to help with the magazine, as well as looking for contributions to content. They’re in particular need of people to volunteer a couple of hours a week to help with layout, artwork, photography, testing and administration. If interested please email editor@themagpi.com.
PIC 33 microcontrollers in the motor control series can implement sensorless field oriented control. FOC is a control technique that works with DC and AC induction motors. It operates smoothly over the full speed range, and has full torque when the motor starts.
The term “sensorless” does not
represent the lack of sensors entirely, but the fact that
in comparison with other drives from the same category
of field oriented control, it denotes that the speed
and/or position sensor is missing. This feature
decreases the cost of the drive system, which is always
desired, but this is not the only reason for this
approach, as some applications have requirements
concerning the size, and the lack of additional wiring for
sensors or devices mounted on the shaft (due to hostile
environments such as high temperature, corrosive
contacts, etc.).
Today we built up some prototype PCBs that arrived. We also cleaned up some sales pages at Seeed, and booked tickets to New York for the Open Hardware Summit and Maker Faire in September.
We replaced FT230x chip footprint on a prototype board we build with the right footprint. We also fixed the PHY IC exposed pad footprints for a QFN chip. This is all for one of Sjaak’s new “secret” projects.
The firmware we’ve been writing for the last two weeks just went into alpha testing. The initial coding is done, now just testing and debugging remain. This project should be released in the next month or so.
Bogdan (Arhi in the forum) moved nearly 50 projects from MPLAB 8 to MPLAB X over the last few weeks, including the USB Bit Whacker 32. We asked if he could point out any bugs he might have encountered. Read the small interview below.
UBW32 is a large project, how long did it take you to move it?
The project leader of UBW32 was hesitant to move to MPLAB X so he kept putting it off. One day I decided to port it for him. Within 15 minutes the project was compiled and functioning 1:1 on MPLAB X.
Where there any difficulties, bugs, etc.., you may have encountered?
Well since I use Linux, many of the include commands that use the front-slash ‘\’ have to be rewritten with back-slashes ‘/ ‘. That was 90% of the problems. The rest were case-sensitive file names, also in the include statements. For example if the file name is theFile.h you can’t include “thefile.h”, but the exact use of upper, and lower cases in the name.
That sounds easy enough, anything else?
Well there were some issues with the compiler settings not being copied over the way I expected, but that problem was fixed with MPLAB X v1.2 release.
Jerome continues to develop the awesome EagleUp plugin for SketchUp and Eagle, which we use extensively in our 3D models. He released version 4.4, which fixes some bugs that popped up with newer versions of Sketchup and Eagle. He also added new functionality like custom silk layers, z-axis offset for parts, and relative paths for folders.
If you haven’t already, check out our EagleUp tutorial.
Read about version 4.4 below the fold.
