Here is a review of the MicroSD card module that is sold through the Indian online store EmbeddedMarket. The board is well designed, and is capable of both 3.3v and 5v interfacing.
End Verdict: I have successfully used this without any hitches with a PSoC3 board of mine(post on that soon!),and I am happy(except for that pitch issue.) with this product,and would definitely recommend it.
Ben Eishen sent in this link. He says, “I have been thinking about building an ESR meter, and this one looks like a winner.” The design is based on the ATMega88 and according to the designer, Dr. Le Hung, “The LCFesR 4.0 unit is a precise, wide range meter that can measure inductivity, capacity, frequency and equivalent series resistance of a capacitor in-circuit, which can be easily built with homemade one- or double-faced PCB and available electronic components.” The video above shows the LCFesR measuring component values as compared to values determined by a commercial unit.
The schematic and documentation can be found on Dr. Le Hung’s website.
Via the contact form.
Kartik revised his EzPSoC3 board into the new quick QuickPSoC3. These boards are mini development platforms for PSoC3 system-on-chip ICs from Cypress. Here is a list of features on the new board:
- Longer pads(almost 3x) so it makes soldering the SSOP part easier for beginners.
- Widened power tracks to 70mils
- Arranged pins(see top-left) such that the miniprog3 can be directly plugged in,making programming easier
- The miniusb connector now is the variant without the plastic pegs beneath.
- Added one user programmable LED(in 1206) and push button switch.
- I’m not using the sparkfun library anymore,since many users complained their pads are too small to solder stuff comfortably.
- Another point is that the SMD passives can be easily replaced by their through hole variants,and can be made 100% through hole,excluding of course the chip itself.
Ian and Sjaak are about to fly Finnair to another Global Geek Tour destination. Four random people who guess where we’re going will get free PCB codes tomorrow morning. Post a comment below, or help us try to get free stuff from Finnair by tweeting your answer on Twitter.
Remember, there’s two ways to get a code:
Thanks for helping us try to score free stuff. We’ll be back with pictures and video next week.
Be sure to check out our Akihabara, and Seoul video tours.
The FT2232H USB 2.0 Hi-Speed breakout board is back in stock at Seeed Studio. This is a breakout with a FT2232H high-speed dual-channel USB-to-serial chip that has two JTAG debug channels.
Little Wire is a ATtiny-based open source AVR programer, we wrote about it previously. This project should soon be available at Seeed Studio in kit form. Here are some updates since our last post:
I finished the C and C++ libraries. I created examples for C and C++ , doxygenreference page for C++, documented and tested everything. Still there can be some problems but i guess these two are ready to go : )I also just have finished the Processing library. I commited to the GitHub with all the sources. SPI and I2C funtions haven’t been implemented on that library but i will add the support soon. Also, there are examples for the Processing library.
I also added a power indicator LED. LED is good :)
We go through a lot of prototypes, and many are not perfect the first time around. Here is a pic of one of our prototypes that had 2 pins cross-connected. The simplest solution was to cut the offending traces and reroute the signals with wire and tape.
Sjaak tipped us to the MCW1001A, a TCP/IP stack and WiFi management IC with a simple serial interface. It stands between your project and a MRF24WB0MB WiFI module so you don’t have to mess with a full TCP/IP network implementation.
MCW1001A is a companion chip to the MRF24WB0 802.11 module. It provides simple socket based method of sending and receiving data from the MRF24WB0 802.11 module. The MCW1001A has an on-board TCP/IP stack and 802.11 connection manager to simplify the connection between a wireless network and the TCP/IP stack management. After the initial configuration is set, the MCW1001A can access the MRF24WB0 802.11 module to connect to a network and send/receive serial data over a simple UART interface from the Host controller.
Via the forum.
Denis 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.
Via the forum.
If you missed it before, TI is offering the Chronos Watch as their current week’s deal at $24.50. The eZ430 deal includes the wireless enabled watch, CC1111 USB RF access point, and a CD containing software and documentation.
A welcome change by TI is the elimination of the deal coupon codes. TI is now fulfilling the deals directly via DigiKey.
XC9572XL CPLD development board v1b are back in stock at Seeed Studio. CPLDs are programmable logic gate arrays which allow you to build custom logic devices simply by programing them.
Get the XC9572XL dev-board for $15 and CoolRunner-II development board for $15.
Martin tipped us off to an AVR/Arduino serial and mmc/SD card bootlaoder. It was designed to fit the same 2kb memory area that the usual Arduino booloader fits into, but can load firmware from an SD card too. Very useful for on “in the field” programing.
This is a proof-of-concept dual bootloader for Atmel AVR atmega chips. It combines a serial bootloader and a mmc/sd card based one in the same 2kb of flash memory that is normally used by the arduino serial loader alone.
You might ask Why? Well, I have quite a few arduino “in the field”. I can simply drag a .hex file to an SD card, insert it in an SD shield, and field-upgrade my boards without additional hardware. At the same time, I can connect the serial port and start developping with the normal Arduino IDE.
PLAYterm is a site dedicated to storing, replaying, and sharing terminal logs. When replaying your session, the code is read line by line, thus providing a more intuitive way of reviewing your logs.
PLAYTERM is intended to raise the skills of terminal CLI users, share their skills and inspire others.
PLAYTERM wants to push forward a new way of education, because terminalsessions are language-independent, extremely educative & entertaining.
Via the forum.
Franz Enzenhofer has put together this novel search-by-image page for use with Google. This is Franz’s own work and is not affiliated with or supported by Google. He’s confirmed it works on Chrome, Safari, Firefox on Mac and Firefox on Windows XP. It does not work on mobile devices.
Continue reading “Unofficial Google image search by drawing”
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:
HappyJTAG2 FT2232-based JTAG debugger for AVR chips:
This construction is based on HappyJTAG Idea, to implement JTAG interface into target avr system and debug it remotly via USB, without specific JTAGICE hardware. All job is done by PC softraware…
Via the forum.
Fcobcn built a USB IR Toy v2 free PCB. With the USB IR Toy you can use a remote control with your computer, view infrared signals on a logic analyzer, capture and replay remote control buttons.
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.
You can get IR Toy v2 for $22.05, including world wide shipping.
Via the forum.
Bus Pirate v4 is back in stock at Seeed Studio. Compare it to v3:
Bus Pirate v4 is new and shiny, but it will lag behind the trusty v3 for a while. If you want proven goodness we still recommend the v3, it’s actively developed and will be manufactured for the foreseeable future. v4 will continue to improve, and we’ll let you know when we think it’s the go-to hardware.
You can get a Bus Pirate v4 for $40, including worldwide shipping.
A demo firmware for the Part Ninja is available in the forum.
The Part Ninja detects they key properties of semiconductors. It can identify transistors, FETs, resistors, diodes, capacitors, and thier pinouts. It also makes a rough estimate of key values like current gain (hFE) for BJT transistors, or the gate threshold voltage for FETs. We will continue to develop it, adding devices and functionality as we go along. If you’d like to contribute, or just want to download the latest firmware, head to the forum.
Via the forum.
Kiran wrote a short tutorial on how to program the Xilinx CoolRunner II CPLD development board with a computer running Windows 7. The board features an onboard USB programmer but the drivers for it are not supported by Windows 7. The only way to program the device, without buying an external programmer, is to run a standalone programing app for the board from a virtual XP environment.
