Cheap light-based PC to microcontroller communication

We’ve seen some pretty cool projects that use blinking lights on a PC monitor to transfer data to a microcontroller. We did a little research, and here are some example projects we’ve found.

This project uses two photo transistors to read a bar code from the monitor. One handles the clock, while the other has the data. The data is read as the clock changes from black to white.

Here is the same project with a different variation of the transmission system. Instead of bar codes, two small rectangles flash to give the data and clock signals.

A more advanced setup is used by SparkFun’s bracelet kit, and the Blinky POV. Here only one flashing square is used to blink out the data, while the timing is handled onboard the uC.

You can find the blinking transfer software for the Blinky POV here, and for the bracelet kit here.

Sjaak’s shop-a-holic trip to Akihabara Electric Town

Sjaak stayed a little bit longer in Tokyo and had more time to score some nice parts. As we already said the big plus of shopping in Akihabara is you can actually touch the stuff, but it also has a major downside – you buy too much stuff…

Please continue reading about our shop-a-holic trip to Akihabara.

Continue reading “Sjaak’s shop-a-holic trip to Akihabara Electric Town”

AVR-based transitor tester

After our recent post about the commercial semi-conductor tester we started a discussion about building a similar open source project. What came up is this AVR based transistor tester (machine translation) by Markus.

It’s built around an ATmega8 IC that interfaces with a standard HD44780 16×2 character LCD. The circuit that does the testing is simplicity itself. Three pairs of resistors are connected to 6 pins of the microcontroller, and each pair is connected on the other end to one of the transistor pins.

The theory of operation is also relatively simple. The microcontroller cycles through different patterns on its output pins until a recognizable pattern is read on its input pins. It supports a very large range of devices:

Arup and Fcobcn have already built one for themselves. Join the discussion and add your input to our development of an open source part tester.

Via the forum.

Bus Pirate week, day 2 – accessories and cables

This week is dedicated to Bus Pirate development. We’re cleaning up firmware v6 and getting ready for a final release. Today we looked at Bus Pirate accessories and cables. Here’s some links mentioned in the video:

The Bus Pirate PIC programming adapter order went in earlier today. Tomorrow we’ll talk about cases, and hopefully later this week we’ll unbox our shipment of parts reels.

Grab the latest v6 firmware release candidate here, check out the Bus Pirate development video we made yesterday.

Traveling to Maker Faires, conferences, etc wiki page

Here’s our tips for traveling to various open hardware events. In the past 8 months we’ve been to San Francisco, New York, London, and Tokyo, and we’ll add China shortly. We took everything we remember and added it to the wiki.

  • Where we stayed
  • How we get around
  • Do you need a car?
  • The size of the event
  • What we ate
  • How we got 3G internet to keep up with the forum

There’s also a list of tips we’ll build on in the future: how many business cards we used, the absolute essentials (table cloth!), and more.

MacLight: ambient Arduino lighting for the Mac


Adam Howard of 3 Sided Cube has developed the MacLight project. It works to vary the color of LEDs mounted behind your Mac to the average color of your monitor. It can also manually set the lighting via an RGB color selector.
Adam says:

Most projects I start are because it’s something that I want for myself. In this case I received a fair amount of interest and opened it up… I stopped development when it worked on my system and suited my personal needs[, and] released it on GitHub so that others can have a headstart if they want to do something similar.

The Arduino sketch is available from Adam’s GitHub project page. The Mac client for MacLight, which sends color data to ArduinoLight devices, is also available.

Via TheNextWeb.

We flew Finnair to Tokyo and it was awesome!

…how about free tickets to HongKong for the first Maker Faire in China?

Over the last year we’ve been all over the world for Maker Faires, open hardware conferences, and other Dangerous Prototypes business. For Maker Tokyo Meeting we flew Finnair economy through Helsinki. We absolutely agree with the review on 꽁머니 사이트, in that Finnair was such an amazing airline we want to heap on praise where it’s due.

Let’s start with an Airbus A330 so fresh from the assembly line it still had ‘new plane’ smell. Seats are 2-4-2, so a window seat isn’t a trap. More legroom than any other airline we’ve flow in recent memory. There’s an outlet in every seat, even economy! We got 8 hours of work watching tv done on the flight.

They wined and dined us the whole way, even the short 2 hour flight to Helsinki. A cheerful and polite crew continued the barrage of food and drink all night, when most US airline crews go off-duty. The bathrooms were even cleaned twice during the flight.

The connections both ways in Helsinki took about 10 minutes. Security was a breeze and we didn’t feel like cattle. Coming back from Maker Faire Bay Area we got stuck in London because we ‘only’ had two hours to connect. We though it might happen this time, but we had plenty of time for dinner and cheese shopping on a one hour layover.

Finnair gave us the single best flight this year. They’re trying really hard to develop Helsinki as the cheapest and shortest flight between Europe and Asia.  We’ll always try to fly them to Asia in the future, including our upcoming trip to Maker Faire China in April.

This post is a shameless attempt to rouse Finnair PR people via Twitter and get free airfare to Maker Faire Schezhen, China. How about it?

Lattice CPLD Dev Board free PCB built

Garrett built a free Lattice CPLD breakout board. He documented his soldering technique with pictures.

The Lattice CPLD breakout uses the LC4032 CPLD that comes in the low pitch TQFP 44 pin package. Our breakout board allows you to get started without designing a custom board for your chip.

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 contact form.

Eagle v6 released

The latest version of Eagle is released and available for download. We are excited about some of the new Eagle V6 features:

  • XML database structure redesign, more flexible and easier to manipulate library and design files.
  • Design reuse, now whole sections of merged schematic and PCB design can be cut and pasted into a new design.
  • Routing capability enhancements: Added undo/redo logs, increased resolution of internal grids, added differential pair assisted routing, added BGA escape routing.
  • Library editor optimization: Connecting multiple pins to a single pad, drawing custom pad shapes, no more limit to the package variants per a single library.
  • Layout editor add-ons: Automatic board dimensions, adding restricted areas with cutout polygons, more then one layout per schematic is now supported.
  • Add descriptions to your schematic, layout, and library files.
  • Define your own context menu.

Since it is a new release we are somewhat apprehensive about jumping straight in. We are looking forward to working with it though.

Masochist’s Video Card on a DE0 Nano FPGA board


Chris from PyroElectro writes:

Here’s a little project I thought you guys might like….I re-built the Masochist’s Video Card using the DE0 Nano FPGA board that I won in the 7400 logic competition. The project article has all the details and VHDL source code for download.

Via the contact form.

Help the Nanode win Internet of Things Award

The Nanode in an inexpensive development board with an ENC28J60 Ethernet chip and an Arduino. It does everything the Arduino does, and adds Internet-connectivity. It was featured extensively in our Homecamp4 coverage.

Recently the Nanode was nominated for best open source project in the Internet of Things Awards, along with the Arduino itself. The well-known and vastly popular Arduino is dominating the competition.

We’re trying to help get the Nano a few more votes because it makes use of the Arduino, but extends it to actually be part of the Internet of Things. If you’re interested in the Internet of Things, Nanode would appreciate your vote.

Bus Pirate firmware v6 test release a4

After many changes to support the new Bus Pirate v4 hardware, firmware v6 is nearly ready. A test release for hardware v3 and v4 is available in the forum here.

There are releases for v3 and v4 hardware. If you have a chance to test it out, all feedback is greatly appreciated. See how we develop the firmware in this video.

Semiconductor analyser determines part type and value

Here is an interesting electronics gadget. It’s a semiconductor component tester that displays the type, pinout, and some relevant specifications of the device connected to its probes.

It doesn’t matter how you connect the test clips to the component, the Atlas DCA can analyse a vast number of different component types including bipolar transistors, enhancement mode MOSFETs, depletion mode MOSFETs, Junction FETs (only gate pin identified), low power thyristors and triacs (less than 5mA trigger and hold), diodes, multiple diode networks, LEDs, bi-colour and tri-colour LEDs. It will even identify special component features such as diode protection and shunt resistors in transistors.

We’ve found a couple similar open source designs, and might make our own version of this handy gadget.

Check out a video of it in action below.

Continue reading “Semiconductor analyser determines part type and value”

Bus Pirate development week – day 1

This week is dedicated to Bus Pirate development. We’re cleaning up firmware v6 and getting ready for a final release. Today we documented the development process to help any prospective developers find their way around the Bus Pirate source. In the video:

  • Compile the Bus Pirate firmware
  • Basic work with SVN
  • Soldering a demo board with bonus editorial on on 1-Wire
  • Reading a DS1822 1-Wire thermometer

Here’s some links mentioned in the video:

Grab the latest v6 firmware release candidate here.

USB gamepad attachment for the Nokia N900


Andrzej “Emeryth” Surowiec writes: “I wanted to share my latest hack with you – a USB gamepad attachment for the Nokia N900. I’ve built a gamepad that connects to the USB port and fits nicely over the keyboard. It features 8 buttons and a PSP joystick, the device emulates a USB keyboard so it works out of the box with all games/programs. At the heart of the gamepad is an ATmega8A running V-USB software USB stack.”

Full writeup here.

Via the contact form.

84th birth anniversary of Robert Noyce

We were pleasantly surprised that today’s Google Doodle featured a retro looking IC. This is in regards to the 84th birth anniversary of Robert Noyce “the Mayor of Silicon Valley. He is the co-inventor of the first integrated circuit which was one of defining moments in the electronics industry.

Wikipedia quote:

Robert Norton Noyce (December 12, 1927 – June 3, 1990), nicknamed “the Mayor of Silicon Valley“, co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968. He is also credited (along with Jack Kilby) with the invention of the integrated circuit or microchip which fueled the personal computer revolution and gave Silicon Valley its name.[1][nb 1] Noyce was also a mentor and father-figure to an entire generation of entrepreneurs.

Leonard Pirate, an Arduino Leonardo and Bus Pirate clone

Yoshi designed a Arduino Leonardo clone called the Leonard Pirate. It uses an ATmega32U4 with hardware USB peripheral.  6 analog and 18 digital pins broken out to headers.

The board is designed with 2 choices of USB connectors. Use a USB A-type male connector that plugs directly into the USB port, or a mini-B female type USB that uses a cable.

Since it is AVR based it can also serve as a Bus Ninja clone, which in itself is a Bus Pirate AVR clone. We met up with Yoshi at the Make Tokyo Meeting 07 and had a great time talking about this project.

Bus Pirate v3b free PCB build

Andrew used his Thanksgiving break to build a free Bus Pirate v3b PCB. He’s looking forward to using the JTAG XSVF player to upload firmware on his Cygni CPLD board.

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.

Bus Pirate to breadboard cable hack


Joe Desbonnet writes that he’s found a quick and cheap Bus Pirate to breadboard cable hack. “I needed to check out a I2C temperature/humidity sensor with the Bus Pirate on a breadboard. So I hacked this connector comprising a short length of 10 wire ribbon cable, a 5×2 IDE connector to mate with the BusPirate IO header at one end and an IC socket at the other end.”

Via the contact form.

App note: Using ShockBurst with nRFL01 and nRFLU1 ICs

Nordic’s nRF 2.4GHz transceivers come with a built in ShockBurst transmission mode. This app note describes how to implement it using the nRFL01 and nRFLU1 ICs.

ShockBurst is a special transmission mode built into nRF devices. It allows microcontrollers to send and receive raw data, while the nRF chips handle the transmission and reception internally. This includes reception acknowledgment and automatic retransmission if data is lost or corrupted. Lower power consumption is achieved by transmitting data in short bursts.

This app note is written for users of their development systems. It does however provide lots of useful information that make this application easily portable to other devices.