Today we finalized the partkit list. W e contacted all the suppliers and received wholesale quotes from them. We also verified some Bus Pirate bug fixes.
We searched for, and wrote about 4 app notes for the weekend. They come from Microchip, Texas Instruments, NXP, and Linear Technology.
How to get good alignment results when etching two sided boards at home. This method uses marks placed outside of the PCB design to help with aliment.
Via Gadget Factory.
Rik shows how to design PCBs with more than two layers in Cadsoft Eagle. The tutorial covers the basics, as well as some advanced subjects like BGA escape routing. Keep in mind you’ll need a standard or pro version of Eagle, as the free version doesn’t support designs with more then 2 layers.
Via the forum.
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:
Continue reading “Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters”
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon.
Coming up:
What are you hacking this week?
Vinu designed and built this servo walker based on the MSP430 Launchpad. He documented his design, along with instructions on how to build one.
Hi, I bought two small servo motors last month. I was thinking what I can do with this two servo, since it is only two in number. Then I asked this to my friend Achu Wilson and he suggested me to try a four legged two servo walker and he shown a youtube video in which some one demonstrating it.
Via 43oh.
bearmos draws our attention to a quick deal! “If you’re interested in the PIC24F series (that DP uses quite readily) – MC is running a promotion where you can get a PIC24F microstick for $9.99 (excluding taxes and shipping) if you place an order today or tomorrow (6/29/12). It looks like a decent little board with a programmer/debugger built in – it also has some unpopulated headers that look like they’d be breadboard compatible. Here’s the normal product page. As well as the datasheet.”
Via the forum.
Joe Desbonnet writes, “This looks like an interesting lightning sensor the AS3935 by Franklin. Available at Digi-Key for about $8 in single quantities. Unfortunately the eval kit is $300.”
Continue reading “AS3935 Franklin lightning sensor”
Video editing, and filming ate most of our day. We did get some time to finalize our part kit list.
We found a few eBay suppliers offering good wholesale prices. SMD transistors, and diodes are a bit harder to find. We also made some tweaks to our partlist to accommodate easier-to-source parts.
Secret project firmware development continued. We finalized the menu structure, moved all the pointer assignments to structure definitions. We are now working on implementing actual functions, various menu item function-pointers will call.
MegunoLink is a utility to create a communication link between PCs and serial port devices such as the Arduino.
… useful tools that interact with an Arduino-style board (or other MCU with serial data). The software is called MegunoLink, from BlueLeafSoftware in New Zealand. Megunolink has many useful features, and we’ll run through them briefly in this article. They include:
- Serial port monitoring – that doesn’t reset the MCU
- The ability to capture serial port data to a text file
- A tool to graph formatted data sent from the Arduino in real time
- “George” the serial monkey! (see below)
- Enable building Arduino projects using ATMEL AVRstudio
- And Megunolink can also act as a graphical interface for AVRdude to upload compiled code to an Arduino
Old ATX computer power supplies are cheap-to-free, and make great lab supplies if you’re willing to add a resistor and short a few wires. Sjaak whipped up an ATX breakout board as an easier way tap and control an ATX supply without any messy hacks. The module has quickly become a favorite among independent developers building custom workbench rigs. Makers are currently using it to reliably power everything from automated hydroponic controllers to specialized data-scraping terminals that track odds for an overseas wettanbieter and monitor live cryptocurrency fluctuations.
3.3, 5, 12, and -12 volts are routed from the ATX connector to screw terminals on the breakout board. Each rail has a 1.25 amp resettable polyfuse to protect projects from the full 30amps+ some power supplies output. This workshop video is about the breakout design and features.
Available for $13.80 at Seeed Studio.
Latest designs and full project overview are available on the ATX Breakout Board wiki.
Old ATX computer power supplies are cheap-to-free, and make great lab supplies with lots of power at several common voltages. The ATX breakout board brings all the power pins to screw terminals for easy access. For a modicum of safety, a 1.25 amp resettable polyfuse on each supply help protect your project from the full current of ATX supply.
Available for $14 at Seeed Studio. Read about the design below.
Freescale has made available their ARM Solutions Guide. This 86 page PDF provides an in-depth view of the Kinetis, Vybrid and i.MX product lines as well coverage of the Tower development system, MQX software solutions, and third party development tools.
Download your copy here.
Exapod designed this Arduino based hexapod robot as a final exam project. The Arduino was used for the prototype, final version will use his ORbit16 development board we wrote about previously.
Raj designed a development board for the PIC12F 8pin microcontrollers. It features a reset button, a 5v power supply, programing header, breakouts for all the pins, and a small prototyping area. He had 12 PCBs manufactured, and is selling 5 of these for $7.99 a piece.
The following project board is designed for fast and easy development of standalone applications using PIC12F microcontrollers. It features on-board regulated +5V power supply, header connectors to access I/O pins, ICSP header for programming, a reset circuit, and small prototyping area for placing additional components.
Today we cleaned up the workshop for tomorrow’s video, we checked some bug fixes on the Bus Pirate firmware (look for a new release soon), and started a Mouser order to be placed tomorrow.
We also went over our partlist, and started gathering information on how much a basic kit of our most commonly used parts would cost.
We weren’t happy with the menu system in place on the secret project (pictured above). It had a lot of switch and if statements which were getting tangled between each other. So we completely overhauled it to use linked lists, and pointers to functions instead.
To test his LCD launchpad booster packs, Robg improvised some DIY test connections. Using slightly larger than standard male headers and some rubber-bands, he is able to make solder-less contact between the Launchpad and his LCD booster pack.
Via 43oh.
Here is a voice synthesizer app for Mac giving your Arduino speech capability. You simply send strings over the serial port and the app reads them out.
Speech for Arduino supports all voices on your Mac. You are able to change the pitch, rate, and volume straight from the window. You can also use various speech commands to modify emphasis on words.
Via RobotGrrl.
Raj built a dual, 7-segment, display board with SPI interface. The board is based around the MAX7219 8x 7-segment display driver, which receives commands over SPI, and drives the display accordingly.
The new display features eight 7-segment displays arranged in two rows of four digits. The on-board MAX7219 driver enables you to easily add eight 7-segment LED displays to your project using only 3 I/O pins of microcontroller. The major advantage of using this board is the time-division multiplexing operations required for continuous refreshing of the display digits are performed by the MAX7219 chip, thereby keeping the microcontroller free for doing other pressing tasks. It is suitable for displaying two variable values simultaneously in a project, such as displaying temperature and humidity, or current and voltage, etc.
We like the idea behind this project, but with a price tag of $12+ for the MAX7219 it isn’t cheap.
Update; Raj is selling 5 kits constituting of the PCB, displays and MAX7219 for $11.99, which is a bargain considering that just the MAX7219 is $12+ dollars in the ones at Mouser.
Matthias fixed the EDID ROM of his Samsung monitor using the Bus Pirate. He documented the whole process on his blog. Also included is a tip on how to connect the Bus Pirate to I2C line through the VGA, or DVI cable.
This post is about fixing a broken EDID ROM in a monitor. There are several ways to do this. Typically this involves writing the EEPROM with the Windows only tool PowerStrip (see here for a HOWTO) . Here I want to present an alternative solution using the Dangerous Prototypes Bus Pirate – a device which every hardware hacker with self-respect should have anyway. You should already be tech-savvy to attempt this procedure.
Via the forum.
