Build a low speed scope with a PIC18F2550 and a graphical LCD

Steve build a low speed scope from a PIC18F2550 microcontroller and a graphical LCD. The MCU takes 60k samples per second from it’s analog-to-digital converter. It proceeds to process the signal and display it and some basic information on the screen. Steve left the source code, and the schematic on his site.

Using the PIC18F2550 GLCD Text Test as a basis for further experimentation, I put together a simple and accurate graphical oscilloscope using a PIC18F2550 microcontroller and a AGM1264F graphical LCD. The oscilloscope measures the average voltage, the maximum voltage, the minimum voltage, the peak-to-peak voltage, and the zero-crossing frequency for a DC signal over 100 samples. The oscilloscope has a built in edge trigger function that can be set to capture on rise or fall (or disabled altogether).

Via Electronics-Lab.

Human birdwings project: the only thing real was the Seeeduino


UPDATED: The Human Birdwings project is an elaborate hoax, the brainchild of possibly one Jarno Smeets, an alleged mechanical engineer from the Netherlands. His stated goal was to build a set of functional human birdwings similar to those conceived by Leonardo Davinci.

Tinito was watching the above installment from the 14-video series and discovered that the “project” uses a Seeeduino! (See 1:50.) The Arduino board supposedly controlled the motors which supplements human power to move the wings with the necessary force.

The “project” was in fact an elaborate HOAX. It nevertheless required a pretty intense effort to put it together. Using a Seeeduino Arduino board really gave it an air of believability. (Yeah. Ha, ha. April Fools about a week early.)

You can view the video “documentation” of this hoax and the supposed project log at the HumanBirdwings website.

WIRED online has published this analysis of the video of the “maiden voyage”.

Via the contact form.

HOW-TO: Make realistic 3D renderings of PCB designs

3D models in Google SketchUp look great, but with a few extra plugins the results can look photo-realistic. In this tutorial we’ll cover our experience with the Maxwell for Google Sketchup rendering plugin.

The Maxwell Fire engine is easy to use. It’s integrated directly into SketchUp so you don’t need to open any other application to render photo-realistic images of your models.

The goal of this guide is to help you make awesome looking images of your projects for documentation and presentation.

You’ll need to have SketchUp and a model to try this tutorial. If you haven’t already, check out our tutorial on how to build 3D models from Cadsoft Eagle board(.brd) files.

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USB development board with a custom scriptable language

SigLab is an open source USB development board that takes commands from a small program that runs Python-like scripts. The hardware is basically a PIC18F2550 breakout board, but the firmware makes it easy to get started using the familiar desktop scripting language.

SigLab is a combination of open hardware and FOSS (free and open source software) projects to provide easy to use and full featured scriptable USB interface for digital electronic experiments. SigLab USB interface consisted with Microchip’s PIC18F2550 microcontroller unit and it provides 14 bidirectional (digital) I/O ports for external interfacing.

MCP2200 breakout board free PCB built

Ricros built a free MCP2200 breakout board. MCP2200s are USB-to-UART converter chips from Microchip. They are actually a remarked PIC18F14K50 microcontroller programmed with the USB-to-UART firmware – we were able to hack one and reprogram it to run an open source USB stack.

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.

Bus Pirate v3 laser cut acrylic case

Hudson designed a laser cut acrylic case for his Bus Pirate v3.5 SOIC DIY edition. He provided the source files for anyone wanting to build their own.

Cut from 2.5 – 3.0mm acrylic and screw together with M3x15 screws. If you use thicker 5-6mm acrylic only one middle layer is necessary, but the entire enclosure will be much larger.

See our case video from a few weeks ago. More awesome DIY cases.

Get the Bus Pirate DIY edition PCB from the PCB drawer for $3.95. Get an assembled Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

Via our Flicker pool.

XT to IDE hard drive controller development update

J1mbo designed some digital logic upgrades to the XT to IDE hard drive controller. This board enables you to use IDE hard drives with vintage XT computers. His design increases the write speeds to the hard drive.

As promised here’s my schematic that should provide for fast writes with the DPv2 board. The command trigger is changed for port xx0h writes to xx1h, hence allowing the CPU to write low then high bytes, hence opening up the OUTSW instruction on the V20. Otherwise it should work like the chuck-mod schematic.

So now I just need to learn how to use ISE :)

Via the forum.

HOW-TO: Build 3D models from Eagle files

Overview

Over the last few weeks we’ve been building 3D models of our projects in Google SketchUp using the EagleUp script. This script makes a 3D model of the board from Cadsoft Eagle board (.brd) files, and populates it with pre-existing models of components.

Once you have a 3D model in SketchUp you are free to evaluate it, build custom enclosures around it, or interface your model with others. This tutorial will help you build 3D models of your projects.

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Introducing RTL-SDR: a $20 SDR


If you don’t want to spend $1,200+ for a USRP SDR to use GNU Radio the crew at OsmoSDR want to help. In addition to their other amazing work, Osmocom team members (notably Steve Markgraf) have been hacking away on an alternative least-cost solution they call rtl-sdr.

So what is rtl-sdr? It is a creative form of using consumer-grade DVB-T USB receivers, turning them into fully-fledged software defined radios.

Those DVB-T receivers supported by rtl-sdr are based on the Realtek RTL2832U chipset plus a tuner IC like the Elonics E4000.

The RTL2832U has some undocumented commands/registers, by which it can be placed into a mode where it simply forwards the unprocessed raw baseband samples (up to 2.8 MS/s 8-bit I+Q) via high-speed USB into the PC, where they are routed into GNU Radio.

At a street price of about USD 20 to USD 25, they are undoubtedly the most capable low-cost SDR hardware that can be bought. So now there is really no more excuse for anyone to not learn GNU Radio. You don’t have to buy a USRP, not even a FCDP or an OsmoSDR: A USD 20 device is all that’s needed for receiving signals like GSM, GMR, DECT, TETRA, APCO25 and many others.

Visit the rtl-sdr page at Osmocom for complete details and links to hardware suppliers.

#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs

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:

  • Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch it every Sunday, right here on the blog
  • Tweet-a-PCB Tuesday. Follow us and get boards in 144 characters or less
  • Facebook PCB Friday. Free PCBs will be your friend for the weekend

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RTC and port expander for an Arduino nixie clock

Luca is designing a nixie clock that will be run from an Arduino. In the latest development he shows to to implement a real time clock source and a port expander to drive the nixies.

In this third blog post, I’m going to show you the logical view of my Nixie clock and two of its main elements: the real time clock, to keep track of the current time, and the expander, to add more I/O lines.

Bus Pirate v3.5a-SOIC DIY build

Jason shared his Bus Pirate v3.5a SOIC PCB build. The Bus Pirate is an open source hacker multi-tool that talks to electronic stuff.

I’ve thrown together the Bus Pirate v3.5a-SOIC DIY PCB . However, I thought I’d let you know that the 3.3V regulators listed in the Mouser cart are now obsolete. I substituted them with two STMicroelectronics LD3985M33R 3.3V regulators and everything seems to work fine.

Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.

Via the contact form.

Internet connected camera using Arduino


Our friends at Adafruit have put together a detailed tutorial on construction of your own Internet of Things Camera. They combine the Arduino with their data logger shield outfitted with the Eye-Fi wireless SD card (first gen model) and a TTL Serial JPEG Camera shield. The result is a self-contained wireless monitoring camera with motion-sensing capabilities. If you connect this device to a WiFi network, when images are captured, they are sent to the Eye-Fi server and in turn forwarded to your computer, smartphone, etc. Power is supplied by a 9 Volt wall adapter, as a standard 9-volt battery won’t supply sufficient current.

The tutorial contains links to all the necessary code.

3D Model: Bus Pirate v4.0

Our latest 3D model is the Bus Pirate v4.0. We used open source Kerkythea rendering system to generate this render.

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. Check out the 3D view below. You can zoom and rotate the model. (3D Warehouse still hasn’t rendered the 3D view, we’ll update the post as soon as it does)

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XC9572XL CPLD breakout free PCB build

Victor has built a free XC9572XL CPLD breakout board. CPLDs are programmable logic gate arrays which allow you to build custom logic devices simply by programing them.

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 the XC9572XL dev-board  for $15 and CoolRunner-II development board for $15.