Josef built this homemade version of the Bus Pirate. Unfortunately he didn’t have a programer to upload the firmware, so being a good hacker he designed and built his own. The programer is AVR based and uses a MAX232 IC to interface with the computer. He promised to post the AVR firmware, and the programing app shortly.
Via the forum.
Akihabara had every imaginable electronic part, so we had to be careful about what we packed. These are the most interesting parts we brought home.
Front and center are 6 tiny VFD tubes, maybe decommissioned from a clock kit judging by the datasheet that came with them. Everybody had to have a bag of these for about $12 (800Yen), even Tayken went back the next day to buy a bag.
To the right are three tiny cell phone vibration motors. We think these were used in the flying machines at Maker Meeting. They’re tiny and easily packable. We couldn’t resist taking a few home at $7 (500Yen) for 3.
We picked up a bag of spacer bars. These are one of those things that’s so hard to buy from a catalog. These are for the very rare secret project we’re not talking about yet.
Finally, we found 0.3mm solder! Great for soldering individual pins on SSOP and other surface mount parts, and breaking our addition to drag soldering with 0.7mm solder. It was pretty pricy, $25 (1800Yen) for 100g of 60/40. This is another find that’s not available in the local electronics shop, and we would never bother to get it from a catalog.
A huge thanks to Tayken and Tokyo hackerspace for accommodating us and providing a tour. This isn’t it for our Tokyo hacking tour. Next week we still have the Akihabara video, and Ian’s presentation at Make Tokyo Meeting 07.
What would you buy in Akihabara?
Many shops in Akihabara don’t fit into any specific category, but were too strange or wonderful to leave out. This shop, for example, has nothing but DIY guitar building supplies.
More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Strange and unclassified on Akihabara Electric Town tour”
After we hit the electronic part stands in the maze, we headed for the street. These were like shops and markets anywhere, except you find giant solar panels and Nixie tubes sitting along the sidewalk. More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Parts shops on the street on Akihabara Electric Town tour”
TI has introduced a sub-GHz spectrum analyzer using the SA430 chip. Known as the MSP-SA430-SUB1GHZ, the CC430 microcontroller that the SA430 is based on is a highly integrated system-on-chip featuring an on-board sub-GHz radio chip based on the CC1101.
As TI describes it:
The MSP-SA430-SUB1GHZ Spectrum Analyzer is a CC430-based reference design that makes it easy and affordable to jumpstart RF development in the sub GHz frequency range. More and more electronic devices include a built-in RF link. RF transceivers are inexpensive – but the equipment to design and debug such systems is not. The CC430-based spectrum analyzer provides an affordable development tool that reduces the time needed on expensive measurement equipment. The system is recognized as a USB device and is operated from a powerful yet simple graphical user interface that is available for free to download.
Listing at $249, the analyzer covers the 300 – 348 MHz, 389 – 464 MHz and 779 – 928 MHz ranges.
Download the datasheet and other docs from TI’s MSP-SA430-SUB1GHZ page.
In an ode to Sjaak’s experience hacking retro games, Tayken took us on a wild tour of Super Potato. This store is 4+ floors of retro consoles, games, and more. Just about every system and game imaginable is behind these doors. For those seeking even more excitement, 카지노사이트 offers a modern twist on gaming fun and adventure. More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Retro gaming on Akihabara Electric Town tour”
Akihibara has a great selection of tools and equipment too. Our favorite PCB drill press was widely available.
More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Tool and equipment shops at Akihibara Electric Town tour”
We were amazed by the number of dedicated LED shops at Akihabara Electric town. On our short tour we encountered 6 or more shops dedicated to selling only LEDs – who’s supporting them all?
This sign is made from plastic coated strips of RGB LEDs. Each is individually addressable. We almost went blind trying to make out the IC you can see between each LED.
More photos below the fold. Continue reading “LED shops on Akihabara Electric Town tour”
Our first stop on the Akihibara tour was a maze of stores with electronic components, mainly through hold stuff. These specific shops are slated to be torn down soon, and the stands will move to a new building deeper in Akihibara. We were lucky to see this popular labyrinth of stands before it’s gone.
More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Part shops in the maze on the Akihibara Electric Town tour”
Today we continue our tour of Tokyo hacker spaces and places with a trip to Akihabara Electric Town. Akihabara is a winding maze with electronic components, test tools, (retro) video games, comic books, and more.
The pictures will go up today, but the monkeys are still in the editing room working on the video. The video tour probably won’t come until next week.
Tokyo hackerspace is a house in a residential neighborhood. On our first trip it was pouring rain, so unfortunately we didn’t get pictures of the outside. Sjaak will have more pictures after his visit later this week.
More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Tokyo hackerspace first visit”
Over the last week a rapid prototyping company in Indiana, Realize INC, showed up in spam posted in the forum from several user accounts. This is the first spam to make it through our spam hammer filter with a link intact. By all accounts it was really well done spam. Since they are a real business, instead of a Russian porn site or online pharmacy, we called them up to report their spam and emailed screenshots.
For all intents and purposes, it sounds like they hired a “guaranteed 1st on google, we increase your search ranking, 100% wh1te hat, no spamz, 1337 SEO” outfit. And since they had never been on the internet before, they didn’t know that was code for forum spam. Unfortunately they don’t plan to address it until next week, so be on the lookout for more Realize INC rapid prototyping spam… A free PCB to the first person to spot one!
If you didn’t already know, most SEO, or search engine optimization, is code for some sort of spam. SEO services promise to make you the first result on a Google search for specific keywords. Good search ranking come from generating content people like, there’s no tricks to it, but everyone likes a shortcut. If it sounds to good to be true, it’s probably spam.
Today we got a reply from Realize INC CFO Tonya L. Reese. We are treated to a delight of justifications for using SEO that seem to include an admission they don’t have time or expertise to engage with customers one on one… Not the best PR job ever.
When you hire SEO, there’s a strong possibility they come spam in our forum. The proper response when you inevitably find out your SEO is spamming:
It’s tacky to justify it, and possibly illegal to wait a week to call off the SEO on the next convenient conference call…
Regular readers may want to skip this post if they’re not in the mood for a long rant.
Continue reading “Realize INC rapid prototyping spam, why most SEO is garbage”
BrentBXR tipped us of about this cool and educational tool. It’s an interactive electronics circuit simulator. It has some pretty cool features, like having the direction of the current animated on the circuit traces, or highlighting the high signal traces in digital circuits.
There is a bunch of circuit examples ranging from Ohm’s law demonstrations to a 4bit Delta-Sigma ADCs. We highly recommend that you check it out, it is a very useful tool for figuring out those pesky circuits you never seemed to fully understand. There is a video of this applet in action below.
Texas Instruments just announced the addition of F563X and F663X lines of microcontrollers to their MSP430 range. Here is the feature list of the new devices:
Tomorrow we’ll continue our tour of Tokyo hacker spaces and places with a trip to Akihibara Electric Town. Akihabara is a winding maze with electronic components, test tools, (retro) video games, comic books, and more.
We shot some video of the tour. So much that the batteries died on the high-def camera and we finished with cellphone videos. Tomorrow we’ll have pictures for sure, but it may take a few days to clean up the video and make something enjoyable.
Also tomorrow, our first trip to Tokyo hackerspace, Ian’s presentation on getting your open hardware manufactured, and more.
On day two Ian gave a presentation on manufacturing open hardware projects. Tayken helped field questions in Japanese. We’ll post a video tomorrow if it turns out.
More photos of the Tokyo hackerspace booth and Dangerous Prototypes gang below the fold.
Continue reading “Tokyo hackerspace table day 2 at Make Meeting 07”
Yoshi Tsuboi’s Leonard Pirate is an AVR-based multi-protocol interface like the Bus Pirate. It uses an Atmega 32U4 with integrated USB. We recommended he check out the great work already done on the Bus Ninja project too. Pirates vs ninjas, get it?
He also showed us an AVR MKII programmer clone he’s been working on, called the FRISK USBTiny MkII. He also did a Japanese translation of the “Soldering is Easy” comic book.
Thanks for talking to us Yoshi, it was great to meet you! Continue reading “Leonard Pirate at Make Tokyo Meeting 07”
These vegetables are wired to cry with you touch them. The tone changes depending on the stroke, and you can almost play them like an instrument. One of the most strange and wonderful projects for sure.
Check below for a roving human heart, DIY cotton candy, Maker manga, and more.
More photos below the fold. Continue reading “Weird and wonderful at Make Tokyo Meeting 07”
James built a digital clock that displays the hours and minutes on an old Nixie tube multimeter. The multimeter functions as a voltmeter that is reading the output of an Arduino generated voltage.
There are still some noise issues to clear up, but all in all it’s a cool looking clock. Check out the video of it below.
Continue reading “Digital clock from an old nixie tube multimeter”
ANIPOV animated bicycle POV by Sun and Moon Labs at Make Tokyo Meeting 07.
Check out the video after the break. Continue reading “Video: ANIPOV bicycle POV at Make Tokyo Meeting 07”
