Week in (p)review: January 13, 2012

Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon:

Coming up:

  • App notes on the weekend
  • Free PCB Sunday
  • Free PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday
  • New designs on Thursday
  • Free PCBs via Facebook on Friday
  • Weekly roundup and preview every Friday

What are you hacking this week?

DIY double sided PCB with soldermask


Retromaster has honed his PCB making skills to get professional quality boards at home. He’s successfully made double sided PCBs with 8 mil trace width, with 6 mil clearance. In his guide he describes how to etch the PCB with toner transfer, how to use mechanical vias, and hot to apply soldermask paint.

Weekly tutorials on the Papilio FPGA development boards

Gadget Factory started a weekly series of tutorials for their Papilio FPGA development boards. First tutorial covers the board’s interface headers.

The first topic? How the Papilio Wing Slot scheme works, did you know that you can address the Papilio pins using several different referencing schemes? If you are writing sketches you can address the first pin on Wing Slot A as: 0, A0, or AL0. Read the article for a deeper explanation of how pins can be referenced.

ITead mystery PCB: High-power RGB LED driver

Schazamp received a few mystery PCBs from Itead’s open PCB service. He contacted the designer of the PCB and got more info about this board, as well as the schematic.

It’s a controller for driving two 3 watt RGB leds in series, you need 6 pin RGB leds for this, you can also use it to drive a single common cathode led.

A custom arduino bootloader has to be written into the atmega8..

We love the “If you can read this, you forgot the heatsinks.” comment added to the silkscreen.

Via the forum.

DuinoMite: MaxiMite-compatible BASIC computer


Olimex has introduced the Duinomite line of dev boards.

DuinoMite is a MaxiMite Compatible Basic computer, originally designed by Geoff Graham, with additional features and Arduino shield-like layout. DuinoMite allows you to program in the BASIC language and have VGA and Keyboard interface, so you can develop and write your code in Basic without the need of any computer. You can store your code on the SD-CARD and execute it on power up though autoexec.bas main code. BASIC programs can easily be exchanged and saved to a PC using either a terminal program and a USB connection, or the SD card. An internal flash memory drive can also be used to save up to 256K of programs and files. Development can be done on the USB only connection.

Continue reading “DuinoMite: MaxiMite-compatible BASIC computer”

Nook Tablet hardware protection hacked with the Bus Pirate

The Nook Tablet hardware protection was hacked with some help from the Bus Pirate. The Bus Pirate was used as a simple USB to UART bridge so nook hackers can talk directly to onboard ICs and bypass the standard bootloader.

The device was released  allowing ADB to be accessed.  Barnes and Nobel quickly patched this hole. o XDA Recognized Developer AdamOutler released a reversion package imediately, and XDA Senior Member Dean Gibson worked on restoring this ability in 1.4.1. AdamOutler then released a Nook Tablet HackPack, discovered a method to boot the Nook Tablet securely from SDCard and showed us how to set up UART with the assistance of XDA Senior Member Pokey9000.

Finally, pulling together all the techniques learned, member hkvc was able to totally bypass the device’s security at the bootloader.  He calls it NOP Based Security Bypass.  hkvc’s technique loads a custom kernel into memory, modifies security registers, then executes a custom kernel.   This requires a hardware modification and may lead to the first mobile device with a modchip.   However, using the power of booting from SDCard this will be an unpatchable security exploit and allow custom ROMs like CyanogenMod and Ice Cream Sandwich to run on the Nook Tablet eventually.

Via the forum.

Workshop video #02: Bus Pirate and Bus Blaster

Workshop update on Bus Pirate firmware, Bus Blaster v3, and Bus Blaster v4. A quick look at our new Nasty Clamp camera tripods too.

You can get Bus Pirate v3 for $30 and Bus Pirate v4 for $40, including worldwide shipping. You can get a Bus Blaster v2 for $34.95, CoolRunner-II CPLD development board for $15, and XC9572XL CPLD dev-board for $15.

Microchip anounces new cross-platform MPLAB XC compilers

Microchip has announced that it will release new cross-platform MPLAB XC C compilers by the end of March. They come in 3 versions depending on PIC family: XC8 is for 8bit, XC16 for 16bit, and XC32 for 32bit microcontrollers.

Microchip is releasing MPLAB XC C compilers in the upcoming weeks.  There will be three, one for each of the major Microchip logic architectures: MPLAB XC8, MPLAB XC16 and MPLAB XC32.  By the end of March, we should have all three versions available.  In the same open-platform spirit as MPLAB X IDE, MPLAB XC C Compilers will run on Windows, MAC and Linux.  XC compilers will come with a new license manager to make installation and license management simple across platforms.  Users will be able to install the compiler on any platform of choice.

No word on what ‘new license manager’ means for free users.

Cadsoft EAGLE scripts to tweak settings and layers

Vimark made some new scripts to make our life easier. We use Cadsoft Eagle a lot and these scrips automate some of the more boring aspects of design.

You can download all of these from our SVN. Don’t forget our handy Eagle part library and export scripts, and standard partlist reference.

DorkbotPDX is organizing an SMD soldering workshop

DorkbotPDX, a hackerspace in Portland, is organizing an SMD soldering workshop on the 29th of January. No tools or prior experience is necessary. For $8 you’ll get a kit to assemble in their shop.

Learn how to work with surface mount technologies. This workshop is suitable for newcomers to SMT as well as more experienced hobbyists who are looking for a reliable method for building projects using SMT. We will cover the basics of surface mount parts and the tools necessary to work efficiently with them, including a temperature controlled hot plate reflow system which you can build. And we will offer a hands on build session where you will go through all the steps in populating a PCB with parts and doing the reflow soldering process to end up with a working project.

The address is ADX, 417 SE 11th Avenue, Portland, OR. If anyone is interested sign up on their site, as the class is limited to 12 people.

ITead mystery PCB: Current consumption monitor

Schazamp received a few mystery PCBs from Itead’s open PCB service. He contacted the designer who was kind enough to leave contact information on his PCB. The board is a current consumption monitor:

It’s basically a current monitor based off an AtMEGA328, which I am programming using the Arduino bootloader. Really quite simple stuff :) It’ll show the battery voltage, and current consumption on a 16×2 lcd. And from that, I can calculate the power, too.

The current measuring is done by a 100A “HASS 100-S” current transducer. The analog signal processing is done by the Microchip Op-amp. The voltage measuring is done by a simple voltage divider on the supply rail. Would have been better with 4-wire measuring, but I was lazy, and the voltage drop across the wires is minimal :)

Via the forum.

Nomis: Simon game clone on ATTiny85


Christopher Woodall from HappyRobotLabs wrote in about his recent project, Nomis, a Simon clone made using an ATTiny85.

It uses up 4 pins, 3 for LEDs and 1 for buttons (ADC input). The write up can be found here. Everything is completely open source (except for the EAGLE CAD limitations of course, which kind of suck) and I am currently waiting on some PCBs to be made.

The source code can be found on the project’s Github page, and there are additional photos on Flickr.

Bus Pirate firmware v6.1 now available

Bus Pirate firmware v6.1 is now available for download. This version fixes a big bug with the SUMP logic analyzer mode, and includes other small updates for hardware v3 and v4.

Bus Pirate firmware v6.1 changelog:

  • Fixed broken SUMP logic analyzer mode
  • Detect v3a/v3b/v3.5/eBay version in v3 hardware
  • Verified v4 firmware detect chip revision
  • Verified v4 has no 8 and 48 byte USB stack errors
  • UART autobaud detect improvements, make the ‘Nearest Common Baud’ function smarter (v4) Thanks Brent!
  • Verified UART autobaud to macro (v4)
  • Trimmed the autobaud text a little for size (v4)
  • Bus Pirate bitbang mode IO fix. Thanks tes! (v4)
  • Verified the USB led (v4)
  • Moved SVN completely to Dangerous Prototypes hardware SVN

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

Clamshell “Yet Another Bus Pirate Case” design

Dsm posted updates on his “clamshell” yabp case design for the Bus Pirate v4.

Instead of the screws I had been using, this version of the “clamshell” yabp case uses neodymium magnets to hold the top case and bottom case together. This change should make it easier to open and close the case (no lost screws or stripped screws holes). The same configuration can now support both the Developer use case and the User use case (see the yaobls discussion thread for more details). The four 2.8 mm PTH mounting holes will need to be enlarged with a 3.2 mm (0.126″) or a 1/8″ (3.175 mm) drill before this scheme will work. I believe that the top and bottom conducting layers are at the same potential (GND) so no insulation will be required around the magnets, but there remains the question of whether the removal of the PTH top-to-bottom conduction path at the mounting holes will affect the electrical behavior of the circuitry.

Via the forum.

More awesome DIY cases.

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

Simple analog programmable load

Here is a simple programmable load. It’s basically a constant current sink that is controlled through a pot. The current is sunk through a high power FET which needs to be cooled to function properly.

Here’s a link to a *really* simple linear constant current sink i put together

This design is about as simple as it gets—multi-turn pot controlled and readout via a voltmeter. Interestingly, a friend who appreciates straightforward interfaces drew a comparison to web interfaces of websites to do with non GamStop casinos UK, noting their emphasis on accessible user experiences. The good news is that it works quite well for moderate loads. It was put together to regulate current flowing through a copper electroplating tank. Thanks to the monstrous Pentium II (or maybe III?) heat sink, it isn’t noticeably warm when drawing 9A of current.

Via the forum.

PIC16F145X: Full-Speed USB with no external crystal

Microchip is about to release the PIC16F145X family of microcontrollers. This little guy is advertised to have Full-Speed USB capability without the need of the usual external oscillator. From the product brief it appears that this uC will use the host USB signal to tune the internal 48 MHz oscillator and comply with the USB standard. Below is a list of features for the PIC16F1459 uC.

Continue reading “PIC16F145X: Full-Speed USB with no external crystal”

Logic Sniffer client version 0.9.5 final released

Jawi released the version 0.95 final of his Logic Sniffer client. It has these updates:

  • Client now also runs on Java 7, but remains backward compatible with Java 6
  • Fixed issues #82, #81, #79, #77, #76, #75, #74, #70 and #40
  • Use PureJavacomm as experimental serial library instead of RXTX
  • Major cleanups in Tool/Device API making it easier to implement and test new tools and/or devices
  • Hide more of the OSGi complexity in the “main” code
  • Ansgar Kueckes donated an new decoder tool to decode ASM45 signals as part of the HP 9845 project
  • OLS trigger mask/value can now be entered as hex-value (patch provided by Ansgar Kueckes)
  • Ensured that the selected capture device is retained between user sessions
  • Updated the about box to include the proper copyright years
  • Several small cleanups and improvements

Via the Forum.