Biodegradable anti-static bags

All-Spec Industries contacted us about a biodegradable anti-static bag they’re selling for the same price as regular anti-static bags. They have the same properties as the normal non-biodegradable anti static bags, only these degrade within 9 months and don’t pollute the planet. We have a pile of plastic part bags sitting around from Mouser and Digikey orders that we save for storing projects,  it would be great to know they won’t sit in a landfill forever if we throw them away.

This type of bag keeps your electronic components from accumulating an electrostatic charge while moving around in the bag. They do not provide any protection against electrostatic discharge, for that you need the conductive bags, also called static shielding bags. For more information about the subject off ESD safe bags you can check out EEVblog #247.

No word if the bags make crunching sounds that annoy consumers.

Via the contact form.

Free PCB: guess where @dangerousproto is going with @Finnair winners

If you guessed we flew Finnair to Seoul, South Korea to visit Yongsan, you were right! We’re scouting the location before we take a bigger group later in the Fall to make our Global Geek Tour video. This place is a whole different beast than Akihabara. Lots of pictures and some rough video will be up next week.

The winners of yesterdays giveaway are DIY Engineering and Casey O’Donnell who won their PCBs over Twitter, while Levi and Bruce guessed the destination right in the comments.

Thanks to everyone who guessed our location!

Expect a video of our visit next week.

Giveaway: AVR component tester

Brent let us know he has a few extra AVR Component Tester PCBs he’d like to giveaway. His project is based on the AVR Transistor Tester which identifies electronic components like transistors and FETs, determines the pinout, and measures basic specifications.

I got my PCBs and have a ton left to give away. I think it would be cool if you could spread the word and let people know that I have free PCBs for the ‘AVR Component Tester’ (Based off of the original AVR Transistor Tester).

Follow this link to get your own.

Via the contact form.

Tiny CNC-bot for under $70

The developers over at Piccolo are working on a CNC-bot designed to draw small pictures, and which could be reprogrammed for other purposes. According to the developers, “We are currently refining the Piccolo prototype into an open-source design that is simple, quick to assemble, and easy to use, and is entirely composed of digitally manufactured components and inexpensive off-the-shelf hardware.”

The project uses both the Arduino and Processing libraries and is currently in the development stage. You can find more information and register for project updates at piccolo.cc.

We’ll be watching for updates on this promising project.

Via Fastcodesign.

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: March 09, 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
  • New 3D model on Monday
  • Free PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday
  • Weekly roundup and preview every Friday

What are you hacking this week?

LED dimmer using an analog knob

LEDs don’t dim well using a an adjustable resistor, instead a pulse-width modulator is usually used to blink them rapidly giving the appearance of less light. Giovanni brings the analog charm back to LED dimming by controlling brightness via an adjustment knob (machine translation). This dimmer reads the value of an adjustable trimmer resistor with an analog to digital converter, and adjusts a the PWM output accordingly.

Oscilloscope USB connection reversed


András Veres-Szentkirályi is part of the H.A.C.K. hackerspace in Hungary. They acquired an affordable, slightly used UNI-T UT2025B digital storage oscilloscope. He wondered what useful information could be gained from sniffing the USB port using Wireshark on a Linux box.

Andras writes:

I managed to reverse engineer the USB connection of the Chinese digital storage oscilloscope our hackerspace got to transfer screenshots. The resulting software is not only more portable and free as in both senses, but can take 16 color screenshots (as it can be seen on the bottom of the blog post), while the LCD is monochrome and the original software downgrades the transmitted image too on purpose.

Here’s the link to Andras’ complete post containing more screenshots and links to the resulting open source code.

Via the contact form.

Free PCB: guess where @dangerousproto is going with @Finnair

We’re 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:

  • Leave a comment here with your guess. We’ll choose two random correct answers and send out coupons tomorrow
  • Retweet or reply on Twitter with @dangerousproto and @Finnair in your tweet to help us shameless try to score free stuff from Finnair’s marketing department. We’ll choose two random tweets tomorrow, no guess necessary

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 video tour too.

No workshop video this week, we’re moving!

Our move to a new workshop took longer than expected, and we didn’t get it done in time to make a video this week. We’ll be back next week to show you around the new place.

The shop is setup like a studio with lots of lighting and a camera mount on the ceiling over the soldering stations. It should make workshop videos a lot easier to shoot.

To pass the time you can check out our older videos. We’ll also have a special PCB giveaway later today.

Bus Pirate v4 free PCB build

AdShea built a free Bus Pirate v4.0 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.

MIT’s 6.002x Circuits & Electronics free online course

MITx is organizing a free online Circuits and Electronics (6.002x) course. The course started 2 days ago (5th of March) and will run until June. Upon completion you’ll receive an electronic MITx certificate of accomplishment.

The course introduces engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include: resistive elements and networks; independent and dependent sources; switches and MOS transistors; digital abstraction; amplifiers; energy storage elements; dynamics of first- and second-order networks; design in the time and frequency domains; and analog and digital circuits and applications. Design and lab exercises are also significant components of the course.

Via Facebook.

Bus Pirate LCD adapter DIY redesign

After receiving a Bus Pirate LCD Adapter Free PCB Ashley couldn’t find any ‘595 shift register ICs, so he was forced to improvise. He redesigned the adapter by using two other logic chips to mimic the single ‘595 shift register. He also redesigned the output from a single row header to a dual row header.

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 an LCD adapter for $9.

Camera Wing for Papilio One PCB giveaway at Gadget Factory

Gadget Factory is giving away 8 Papilio One Camera wing PCBs . This can be used with a FPGA and some open VHDL code to display video on a PC.

The first 8 people to send an email with a shipping address to support@gadgetfactory.net will get the free PCB’s! (Note: this is a bare PCB only, it does not include the camera or voltage regulator.)

Draft: Propeller 2 code authentication and protection


Parallax is in the process of designing its next gen Propeller chip. Informally dubbed the Propeller 2, the design includes a 32-bit, general purpose multi-core microcontroller with 8 identical cogs, a 160 MHz planned maximum clock speed, core voltage 1.8 VDC with I/O pin voltage of 1.8 VDC–3.3 VDC, 92 I/O pins total with each pin planned to have internal input ADC, output DAC, true or inverted input/output, differential input/output, comparator and Schmitt input.

Parallax is inviting comment specifically regarding the code authentication scheme to be used in the Propeller 2. They have published this draft document and are seeking input on the Parallax Forum from those interested.

UPDATED: Check out the Propeller 2 specs page for the complete preliminary feature list.

HOW-TO: Make parts in Cadsoft Eagle

Eagle’s popularity is partly due to the sheer number of parts and footprint libraries available for it. Sometimes you can’t find the part you need in an existing library though, and it’s time to make your own. Making a new part in Cadsoft Eagle can be intimidating for new users, but the guide below shows how we make our own Eagle parts step by step. Alternately you can check it out on the Wiki.

Continue reading “HOW-TO: Make parts in Cadsoft Eagle”