Michu made some improvements to the open source PixelController software. This app is intended to control various light-show drivers such as the Art-Net, Mini-DMX, LPD6803 and Seeedstudio’s Rainbowduino.
I’m updating my PixelController software and did some major updates like an integrated GUI, Color Sets etc. Take a look at the Screenshot, the code is on GitHub.
Via the forum.
Exapod built the USB IR Toy on a DIY PCB and programmed it with the TV B GONE firmware. To give it a stealth touch he stuck it into an old Nokia phone case. It’s powered by the phone’s battery, which runs 4 IR diodes for extended range and usage time.
…found an old nokia around the house and use the case for the tv b gone. The circuit is similar to the adafruit kit’s one, i use the phone battery that is a 1000 mAh Li-on. The switch is under the number 7.
The range is incredible bigger than anything i build before, it passes glass, and in a store is super funny. In the future i will add a switch so i can choose wich code to send, european or american.
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”
William Finucane of revoltlab.com posted this article describing a simple low-cost means of activating devices remotely via telephone.
I wanted to be able to call my house and turn on the lights and television during nights when I was away on vacation. What’s more, I didn’t want to spend any money on cell phone bills and wanted to be able to use virtually any phone. I came up with a light-activated cell phone switch box that uses the display screen that you get from an incoming call to control a physical output.
The BOM consists of an Arduino, LDR (light dependent resistor), 10k resistor, breadboard and servo.
The hoz via the contact form.
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?
When we got back from our Global Geek Tour in Shenzhen we giveaway some rosin bars, for homemade flux. Ginpb wrote to let us know he received his. All that is left is for him to mix it with some alcohol, and he’ll have flux.
I finally took 2 minutes to upload photos. Why is in a bag? Because when arrived the crystal was pretty much smashed.
Check out our Flux off part one, and part two videos.
Via the forum.
Today we made a video of the Get your Stuff Made presentation. We also worked on cleaning up the Bus Blaster v2/3/4 buffer logic.
Design of the badge for New York Maker Faire started in full. It has options for through-hole or various surface mount part sizes. The picture above is of the latest design.
Part Ninja firmware is moving along. Today we fixed an error with triac recognition. We also made an app with Processing, that retrieves the latest test information and copies it into the clipboard. It works even when the app is in the background, making it easy to post bug reports in the forum.
There’s a lot of people doing small scale manufacturing now. A lot of it is open source related, much isn’t. Identifying the various groups and their association with open source is an idea inspired by a discussion with Jeff from MightOhm. It’s not fleshed out enough to submit this time, but we’re posting it up for discussion (and so we can find it again later).
Type of submission: poster
Title: Who’s doing indy cottage manufacturing?
Description:
An indy cottage manufacturing scene has grown up alongside the Open Hardware movement. Small shops, many times just a single person, kit electronics projects or assemble small batches of hardware for sale. We feel this is positive because it spreads open hardware to talented people who don’t etch PCBs or buy electronic components, but still have a lot to contribute.While lots of cottage manufactures are working with open licensed hardware projects, many are not. This poster summarizes some general types of organizations involved in small-scale electronics, and their relationship to open source.
Indy cottage manufacturing classifications, such as:
1. Open source hardware, open business and process documentation (Adafruit, MightyOhm)
2. Open-for-education hardware (mostly non-commercial, CC BY-SA-NC)
3. Crowdsourced open hardware development funding (eg Kickstart) (OpenVizsla)
4. Crowdsourced funding to manufacture an existing open hardware project (Analog Pirate)
5. Closed source hardware designed or produced with crowdsourced funding
6. Closed source APIs and software-as-services marketing to open hardware community (GitHub, Upverter)
7. Groups/clubs releasing open hardware for fun, host build workshops (hackerspaces, ham radio)
8. Groups/clubs releasing open hardware and seeking funding (Air Quality Egg)Importance: TBD :)
Bio: Ian builds a new open hardware project every month at DangerousPrototypes.com. Copies of the projects are available from Seeed Studio’s open hardware manufacturing service.
Open Hardware Summit talk, poster, and demo proposals are due today. As always, we post our conference applications to give you an inside look and a template for your own submissions.
We want a backup if the USB vendor ID proposal isn’t accepted, so we submitted the ‘Get your stuff made‘ presentation as a poster. It’s always fun to talk to people about their projects and how to get them manufactured.
Type of submission: poster
Title: Get your stuff made: four approaches to open hardware manufacturing
Importance:
There’s lots of talented people who don’t etch PCBs or solder surface mount parts, but who are eager to apply their skills to open hardware projects. Manufacturing a project puts it in the hands of firmware, software, and documentation developers who make a sizable and unique contribution when given the opportunity.Description:
This poster details the major ways open hardware is being manufactured today, including:
1. Licensing to manufacturers
2. Manufacturing fulfillment, full outsourcing
3. Contract assembly
4. In-house DIY assemblyFor each approach we show the breakdown of responsibilities, and compare the level of involvement from full outsourcing to the garage assembly line. (please see attached image from a recent presentation on the topic)
Bio: Ian builds a new open hardware project every month at DangerousPrototypes.com. Copies of the projects are available from Seeed Studio’s open hardware manufacturing service.
We look at the four common ways open hardware is commonly manufactured, and show the package of files we send to get our stuff made.
This is the ‘studio’ version of our ‘Get your stuff made‘ presentation from OHS2011 New York, MM07 Tokyo, Homecamp4 London, 2012 mini Maker Faire Shenzhen China, and 2012 Bay Area Maker Faire California.
Grab the presentation in Power Point, Open Office, and PDF formats below. Check out the main points below the break.
Continue reading “Workshop Video #25: Get your open hardware manufactured”
Diego Spinola writes, “Here’s a project I’ve just “completed” that I think you’ll like, it’s an OSHW haptic interface! It’s called VIMPHIN and it’s pictured in action above. Guess what logic sniffer I used to debug the actuator’s bus?”
Our money would be on the open workbench Logic Sniffer!
For more videos, info and links to the source code and libraries visit the Hackeneering website.
Via the contact form.
Open Hardware Summit talk, poster, and demo proposals are due today. As always, we publish our conference applications to give you an inside look and a template for your own submissions.
This year we revised and resubmitted a talk proposal on USB vendor IDs and open source. This was rejected last year, though the two reviewers gave it the highest score and great comments. We’re trying again because maybe this issue is widespread enough now that it fits in the OHS lineup. Just in case, we also submitted it as a poster so maybe we can have a small group discussion.
Type of submission: talk
Title: A sketchy history: USB and open hardware
Description: USB is the go-to interface for small electronic devices, and open hardware is no exception. From Kickstart campaigns to hobby projects, there are more USB connectors on open hardware than ever before. Each of these devices needs a unique ID number, issued in blocks by the USB Implementers Forum at a cost of $2000. Not a big deal for a giant corporation, but it’s a hefty investment for a small open hardware community or kitchen table start up.
The ID also comes with restrictions that don’t jive with open source, namely it can’t be shared under an open source license. Projects may have open source code, but a compiled firmware with a USB ID can’t be used freely. For example, the ATMEGA-based USB to serial converter chip on the latest Arduino requires a USB vendor ID. Anyone who wants to manufacture their own UNO-inspired project has to cough up $2000 bucks to get their own ID, Arduino can’t share theirs.
Continue reading “OHS 2012 talk proposal: A sketchy history: USB and open hardware”
Ginpb built the MCP2200 USB to serial breakout board free PCB. He had to improvise a little with the quartz crystal, but in the end everything worked out.
Here is my free PCB build. I really hate those tiny 12 MHz crystals, I couldn’t find them anywhere, why not to use most common hc49.
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.
Via the forum.
Today we submitted one talk and two poster proposals to the Open Hardware Summit. We’ll post those, including an idea we didn’t submit, tomorrow.
A big box of PCBs from Seeed Studio’s Fusion PCB service came while we were away, today we grabbed them at the post office.
We continue to develop the Part Ninja firmware. Some errors with resistance calculations were fixed today. We’re also developing a desktop app with the cross-platform Processing environment to help debug the hardware and identify parts.
An issue with the FTDI’s FT230X SSOP-16 footprint was fixed, thanks to WestfW for noticing it.
There’s a new workshop video tomorrow. We’ve got three ideas: part storage, customer service, and a video version of the Get yer stuffs made presentation. Please let us know if you have a preference in the comments.
Rynius is automating his house using the CAN bus. He hit some issues with noise in the cabling, which he identified and documented the fix.
I had trouble finding wire for the bus and ended up using security cable. Unfortunately it picked up a 60 Hz wave, so I had to add some caps to clean it up.
Cables got noise? Don’t miss Bertho’s mega demonstration of problems with long cables and common solutions.
Most chips have multiple power pins that need to be connected to the same power supply, but Eagle doesn’t allow you to give 2 different pins the same name. This short tutorial shows how to get around this and name multiple part pins the same thing.
Keep reading below, see our other Eagle tutorials here.
Continue reading “HOW-TO: Create Eagle parts with pins that have the same name”
Inspired by the securestate article “All Your 900 MHz Are Belong to Us”, the hack4fun crew wondered about the potential for using the RTL-SDR dongle with Backtrack5 Linux distro. They were able to easily install the drivers and related software to use the RTL-SDR with GNU Radio and GNU Radio-companion and have written this article providing a detailed how-to. Now you can combine these two outstanding capabilities in one integrated pen-testing package.
Microchip released a scripting tool for the PicKIT 3 that essentially turns it into a PicKIT2. Why do that? There’s a huge software ecosystem for PicKIT2, it’s a popular programmer and debugger that’s been around for year. In version 3 Microchip completely changed the PicKIT and made it incompatible with the existing software. The downside is that this firmware is not supported from inside MPLAB, so in-circuit debugging isn’t possible.
Via the forum.
PariahZero laser cut some black Delrin plastic to build a case for the Logic Sniffer. He also designed a detachable case for the Buffer Wing. If you are interested in the source SVG files for laser cutting, contact him in the forum.
I’ve used laser-cut 0.125″ black Delrin plastic; I felt the extra strength (vs. acrylic) provided by Delrin was worth giving up transparency. As Delrin is notoriously difficult to glue, I haven’t attempted to glue anything to cover the reset & update holes.
See our case video from a few weeks ago, and even more awesome DIY cases.
Get a Logic Sniffer for $50, with free worldwide shipping.
Via the forum.
Proposals for the Open Hardware Summit will be submitted tomorrow. We’re proposing a talk on USB IDs again, updated with a nod to OpenMoko’s USB VID and ethernet MAC giveaway. Based on last year’s summit line-up we think the USB talk probably won’t be accepted (again), so we’re also submitting it as a poster so maybe we can have a small group discussion instead. We’re also putting in a second poster proposal about the variety of (non) open source groups getting involved in cottage electronics manufacturing. That idea is still in flux.
Design on some Maker Faire specific projects is underway. One is a version of the badge we used at the Shenzhen Maker Faire(pictured above). It’ll be transformed into a low part count through-hole or surface mount soldering practice kit. The other is a name badge that’s still under wraps, we’ll debut it the New York Maker Faire in Autumn.
Part Ninja firmware is undergoing heavy testing, and debugging. We added USB debugging support. The Part Ninja prints debugging information into the terminal, which can be pasted as a bug report in the forum. Huge thanks to Ginpb for joining the testing.
Travel logs and standard meal deductions were filed for the Bay Area Maker Faire. Q2 taxes are just two weeks away.
Is there any interesting geek stuff in Chongqing, China?
