3D Model: XC95144XL Breakout Board

Today we made the 3D model of the XC95144XL CPLD breakout board. The board has 39 of the CPLD pins broken out to a “Blade” style configuration, while the remaining  pins are broken out to two dual-row headers featured on top corners of the board.

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

GIVEAWAY: Simplecortex v1.3 Cortex M3 dev-board

Simplecortex v1.3 is a Cortex M3 dev-board with an on-board debugger. It’s Arduino shield compatible, so you can turbo charge shields with a 32 bit ARM processor.  It features a LPC1769 Cortex M3 microcontroller from NXP with 512KB of flash, 64KB of RAM, and a 120 MHz top speed.

To make sure that the Simplecortex is easy to use we made tutorials for almost every peripheral on the chip and examples to get you starting.  There are tutorials for simple stuff like IO control up to more advanced tutorials for MicroSD cards. If you have ideas for a new tutorial or made a tutorial yourself, feel free to drop an email or post it in the forum. The Simplecortex also has an onboard debugger. It can also be used to program external devices like a self made PCB for your own project. No more microcontrollers with pre-programmed bootloader needed.

The Simplecortex team provided us with a board to give away this week. Leave a comment on this post with a project idea, and this board could be yours on Thursday.

The Simplecortex v1.3  is available for $45.00 from ITead Studio.

Connector sampler pack

We have an ongoing thread in the forum where you can share your latest electronics purchases. Here’s some stuff Zeta got recently:

You know how hard it is to choose the right conector when all you have is an online catalog and well TE Conectivity (via Digikey) sent me a sample pack of their sotutions for SSL.

If you got some cool stuff you’d like to share head for the forum and let us know about it.

App note: Using the LTM2881 as an Isolated 5V power supply

Here is an app note from Linear Technology on how to use their LTMM2881 isolated RS485 transceiver as a isolated 5v power supply.

The LTM®2881 is an isolated RS485 transceiver that guards against large ground-to-ground differentials. An onboard DC/DC converter provides isolated 5V power to the output.

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:

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB”

CMU Sphinx open source toolkit for speech recognition


CMU Sphinx is Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) open source toolkit for speech recognition. The project has published this article on Sourceforge describing the automation of language model creation procedures as a complete C++ application. The article is the latest in a series posted on the Sourceforge page describing this ongoing open source academic research program.

For extensive documentation on this complex and fascinating project, visit the CMUSphinx wiki page.

App note: Precision current limiting with the LMP8646

Here is an app note from Texas Instruments describing how to use their LMP8646 ‘shunt’ current monitor as a current limiter on linear, and switching power supplies.

The LMP8646 is a precision current limiter used to improve the current limit accuracy of any switching or linear regulator with an available feedback node. Many regulators might have an internal current limiter, but its output accuracy is often as high as 30%. The output accuracy of the LMP8646 can be as low as 3%, making it a preferred current limiter for many regulator applications.

App note: Control a USB Host-enabled AVR from an Android device

Atmel describes how to control an AVR chip from an Android device.

This document introduces the Android Open Accessory Protocol  for Atmel® microcontrollers. The library and examples are  included in the Atmel AVR® Software Framework (ASF) to provide the customer with a quick and easy way to get started with developing an Android accessory. The existing demos are  described in the Atmel AVR32848: Android Accessory Demo.

Free webcast: Expanding the Capabilities of your Arduino Projects


O’Reilly is offering a free webcast on Expanding the Capabilities of your Arduino Projects. The one hour presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at 10 AM PT and features Michael Margolis, author of the Arduino Cookbook, 2nd Edition.

For more information or to register visit O’Reilly’s webcast registration page.

Via MAKE.

App note: USB Host stack programmer’s guide

A guide to Microchip’s USB Host stack. USB Host hardware lets a small chip like a PIC use USB hardware like flash drives, printers, or in this case any type of custom hardware.

This document is an in-depth programmer’s guide for those customers who need to implement their own driver to allow an embedded host to control a vendor-specific USB device or a device class for which Microchip has not provided a sample implementation. It describes the Microchip Embedded USB Host stack?s client-driver architecture in greater detail and explains the steps necessary to create a client driver from scratch.

SNES FLASH/ROM runs custom Super Nintendo code

dext0rb from The Electrified Fooling Machine Company has just finished work on a project which allows custom Super Nintendo code to run on an SNES FLASH/ROM. He writes, “I wanted to make and play an updated version of NBA JAM an SNES hardware, so I made this device. Load a game ROM to the device over the USB connection and then you’re ready to relive “the best hoops game ever created” (per Electronic Gaming Monthly ’95)!”

His design is based on the Atmega32u4 MCU, an AMD 29F032B 32-megabit flash memory chip, and 3 octal latches to build up a 21-bit address using only 8 microcontroller pins.

Visit dext0rb’s website for project details, schematic and code links.

Via the contact form.

Workshop Update for June 15th, 2012

Today we ported the open source USB to two microcontrollers, the PIC18F2550, and the PIC24FJ64GB002. While the echo demo we had worked with the PIC18F2550, it was built to work with the IR Toy, so some board specific stuff was in there. The new ports are bare bones, and are intended for any board that has USB support on it.

Part Ninja documentation required some schematics of how part specific measurement is done, so we made a bunch of them in Eagle.

We continued to play around with the Bus Blaster development today. We started routing a V4 board featuring an FPGA, instead of the CPLD we use in v2. Signal traces first, as they need to be clean, and power traces around them.

 

 

Contest: Changing the World with Android

Microcontroller Central is sponsoring a contest with the theme, “Changing the World with Android.” According to MC:

To enter, submit a design proposal for an MCU-based device that uses an Android platform (tablet, smartphone, etc.) as the user/control interface, via the reader boards. The more detail the better, but entries should be at least 100 words long to give readers and judges enough information. Registration is required in order to post.

The first 100 contest entrants (based on posting time) will receive a $5 Starbuck’s gift card.

The deadline for entries is July 4, 2012, and ten finalists will receive an NXP Android Open Accessory Applications (AOAA) kit so that they can turn their idea into reality.

For rules, complete details, and to enter check out the contest description blog at Microcontroller Central.

Laser cut acrylic Bus Pirate case

Here’s another cool laser cut acrylic case for the Bus Pirate.

There are many custom enclosures for Bus Pirate, must be a very popular product (we at LAWICEL AB knows this of course). We sell the Sparkfun version (TOL-09544). The original version was made by Ian Lesnet of Dangerous Prototypes. After looking arround on enclosures for this product we decided to make our own version since we have in house an Epilog 35W laser cutter. We like using 3mm Acrylic and have many colors availible, one is a neon yellow/green see through acrylic.

Check out our workshop video about cases, and many posts with community built cases for our projects.

You can get a Bus Pirate v4 for $40, including worldwide shipping.

Via the forum.

Open source USB echo demo ported to the PIC18F2550 Breakout Board

We ported the open source USB echo demo to the PIC18F2550 Breakout Board. It has only the bare essentials you’ll need to get a CDC class USB project going on a PIC18F2550.

The code is setup for a 12 MHz crystal. To change to another just edit the #pragma config PLLDIV = 3 line in the configwords.h file with a value hat divides your clock down to 4MHz. The equation for the PLLDIV parameter is [Frequency of your crystal]/4. Here are a few common examples:

  • 20 MHz, #pragma config PLLDIV = 5
  • 16 MHz, #pragma config PLLDIV = 4
  • 12 MHz, #pragma config PLLDIV = 3
  • 8 MHz, #pragma config PLLDIV = 2
  • 4 MHz, #pragma config PLLDIV = 1

You can download the source code from SVN.

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:

Continue reading “Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters”

Week in (p)review June 15, 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
  • Parts on Monday
  • New 3D model on Monday
  • Free PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday
  • USB stack tutorial on Wednesday
  • Workshop video on Thursday
  • Weekly roundup and preview every Friday

What are you hacking this week?

ATARI POKEY player using DP QFP proto board


Markus Gritsch has built a dedicated ATARI POKEY chiptunes player using a DP QFP proto boards.

“I successfully compiled the ASAP (Another Slight Atari Player) library for a PIC32MX795F512H. ASAP emulates a 6502 CPU and the famous POKEY sound chip used for example in the ATARI 400/800 and XL/XE 8-bit computers. To say it with Wikipedia’s words: POKEY’s sound is distinctive.”

Cool project! Thanks, Marcus.

For project details, schematic and links to the code see Marcus’ forum post.