Backwoods logger prototypes, available now

Big Mess o’ Wires’ Backwoods logger prototypes are now available:

The Backwoods Logger is a programmable graphing altimeter / thermometer, originally developed here at BMOW and now an open hardware project. Interested in the Logger, but don’t want to build it yourself? Assembled prototypes of the Backwoods Logger Mini, BLsync adapter, and blank Logger Mini PCBs are now available for purchase! Get one for yourself, or as a gift for your favorite outdoorsy nerd. I brought the first prototype with me on the John Muir Trail this past summer, and it was awesome.

Open source soldering iron driver update

Arhi has been busy debugging noise from PTC type soldering iron sensors. The problem was the sensor’s sensitivity to the current used as a bias. If the current used is greater or less then 1mA the sensor picks up too much noise.

In the latest revision of the Soldering iron driver both PTC and TC type sensors are supported correctly, and all major noise has been eliminated. The input stages for each sensor are now separated and are selectable through a jumper.

The image above shows the iron’s PTC temperature sensor output compared to the NTC sensor Arhi drilled directly into the tip. This is a much cleaner sensor reading then his previous attempt.

PTC soldering irons are used by the Hakko 907ESD and various clones, while the TC type soldering irons are used by various Solomon brand soldering irons and their clones.

Via the forum.

From the mail bag: Open source code inspires!

BrentBXR writes:

Ever since I got my Bus Pirate it as really inspired me to step my game up. All my best projects take a lot of inspiration form the bus pirate (such as serial commands and syntax protocols ( no more 1 char to do a function and nothing else; its awesome to send true commands to the AVR to send custom commands every time instead of pre-defined ones.), also something big on my own projects is now always starting in a ‘safemode’ which disables any functions that could possibly destroy the target, stuff like that.)

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

Via the forum.

Image by With Associates: CC BY-SA

TIDeals: MSP-EXP430F5529 USB experimenter’s board


Bluehash from 43Oh writes to inform us of today’s TiDeal: the MSP430F5529 USB Experimenter’s Board. “On the board itself is USB connectivity, a five-button capacitive touch pad, a MicroSD slot with a 1GB card included, a 102 X 64 dot matrix LCD, four push buttons, three LEDs, a scroll wheel/potentiometer.” TI is offering this dev board for $74.50, half off the usual price of $149.

Via the contact form.

Coolrunner II XC2C256 breakout board

Jason built another CPLD breakout board. Following his XC95144XL breakout, he has now completed a Coolrunner II XC2C256 breakout. As with his previous project some pins are broken out into a single row of headers for easier use with a breadboard, and the remaining pins are broken out to two dual-row headers. A power supply, oscillator, 3 LEDs and a button footprint are available for add-ons.

Via the forum.

#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

Continue reading “#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs”

Giveaway: Cadsoft EAGLE licenses

There are a ton of amazing open source projects that fit within the restrictions of the freeware version of the Eagle PCB layout program. Sometimes you might want something bigger for a personal project, so this week we have three Cadsoft Eagle Hobbyist licenses to give away.

Here is the revised paragraph incorporating the keyword:

The Hobbyist license enables everything in the EAGLE Standard Edition (six signal layers and 160x100mm routing area) with all three modules (Layout+Schematic+Autorouter). Please note that the Hobbyist license is limited to strictly non-commercial use. While exploring different software licenses, I was reminded of my cousin who works for a 슬롯사이트. He often talks about the importance of proper licensing and regulations in ensuring a safe and reliable gaming environment. His experiences have made me more aware of the need to adhere to licensing terms, whether in software development or online platforms.

Leave a comment on this post with an idea that would benefit from the extended features of a hobbyist license, and one of the licenses could be yours on Thursday.

Logic Sniffer: Hacking cheap RFID readers

Aaron decided to hack a cheap USB RFID reader, by using the Logic Sniffer to figure out the internal IC protocol.

To make it useful for his projects he decided to hijack the internal bus that has the initial RFID decoding. After some poking around he was able to find the UART TX transmitting pin. By using his Logic Sniffer he successfully decoded the signals sent internally between ICs and is now free to use his new toy in any way he likes.

Get a Logic Sniffer for $50, with free worldwide shipping.

MCP2200 breakout board free PCB built

Rohit built a free MCP2200 breakout board. MCP2200 are USB-to-UART converter chips by Microchip. In fact they are PIC18F14K50 microcontrollers programmed with the USB-to-UART firmware.  We were able to hack one and program an open source USB stack into it.

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.

Another Logic Sniffer ground mod

Here is a mod to add ground to unused Logic Sniffer probes, like the one built by Tarloth. He grounded the top row of a dual-row female header, and soldered the bottom row to his Open Bench Logic Sniffer. This allowed him to both improve signal integrity, and be able to mate his OBLS with an old logic analyser probe cable he had laying around.

Via the Forum

Matchstiq SDR transceiver


Drone writes to inform us of a new SDR:

Here is an interesting new handheld SDR transceiver called Matchstiq from Epiq solutions. 300MHz to 3.8GHz. I sure would like to know how they’re implementing the configurable suboctave RF filters. There is on-board CPU, DSP, and Xilinx Spartan FPGA. Noise figure at 8dB is nothing to write home about. 12 bit A/D with no dynamic range or noise specs. Intercept point and compression level are not specified (suspicious). The synthesizer specs are sketchy. It does use a TCVCXO, but it seems they are not disciplining it with the on-board GPS receiver (why?). One source reports these are going to ship in December 2011 for $4,500.00 USD each (yes, that’s not a typo, US$4.5k).

You can download the Matchstiq product brief PDF from the Epiq Solutions site. We note that the Matchstiq’s capability of working standalone such as in a UAV, connected to your Android host device over either WiFi or Bluetooth or via USB 2.0 to your PC.

Via the contact form.

Logic Sniffer client 0.95b1 beta release

A beta release of Jawi’s Logic Sniffer client version 0.95 is now available. It has these updates:

  • Client now also runs on Java 7, but remains backward compatible with Java 6;
  • Fixed issues #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);
  • Several small cleanups and improvements.

Jawi expects to have an official version 1 release soon.

Via the Forum.

Gerber preview software and usage summary

We asked what things you check before sending gerbers to the board house, and what your favorite gerber viewer is. Here is a compilation of your responses:

  • Problems with the footprint, the solder pad is sometimes buried by mask.
  • Drills outside board or flipped.
  • CAM didn’t export expected silkscreen layers.
  • Evaluating not only whether a silkscreen is present, but if it’s legable (size, location, etc).
  • For the more complicated footprints, its useful for evaluating exactly where masks are applied.
  • Quickly seeing whether all of the vias on a board are tented or not.
  • On output from older design packages, it was sometimes necessary to double check copper fills, but this generally isn’t a problem with current ECAD packages.
  • One last doublecheck to make sure soldermask is on the correct side for the correct component (PCB’s that have components on both sides).

From your responses it became clear that gerbv is the most popular software used. Also mentioned were ViewPlot, Viewmate, KiCAD, and GerberLogix.

RFDump open source RFID data analysis software

RFDump is an open source tool introduced at the Blackhat Conference in Las Vegas 2004 and is designed to work with certain RFID reader hardware to read tags and display their meta information on your PC. The current version is V1.6. “It is a backend GPL tool to directly interoperate with any RFID ISO-Reader to make the contents stored on RFID tags accessible. This makes it possible to test robustness of data-structures on the reader and the backend-application, perform proof-of-concept manipulations of RFID tag contents, clone / copy and paste user-data stored on RFID tags, and audit tag-security features.”

Check out the RFDump website for detailed information and downloads.

(As a side note, if you want general information on RFID reading/hacking check out the slides from Joe Grand’s excellent presentation at the IT World 2006 conference RFID Security for Retail Enterprises.)

Wireless home energy monitor

Here is a project that allows you to keep track of your household power consumption over a wireless connection. Jone’s energy monitor project counts electricity meter‘s indicator pulses, which the electrical distribution company uses to bill you. Once it reads 5 minutes worth of consumption data, it is broadcast to a web server over a XBee module.

Be advised that some power distribution companies don’t allow any electronics to be placed near or around their power meters.

Via the forum.

DIY breadboard modules for rapid prototyping

Raj made a few breadboard modules to speed up prototyping. We think it’s a great idea to have a power supply, few switches, LEDs, etc, broken out into modules. It will save you a ton of time, and space on your breadboard.

Breadboards are a great tool for prototyping and testing electronics circuits. However, if you are tired of building the same basic circuits time and again on the breadboard for testing every new project, here is something that you could try too. I have made some plug-in modules to make my breadboarding life easier. These modules serve very common functions that are required in most microcontroller circuits. Their use not only reduces the number of wire connections on breadboard, but also expedites prototyping and makes debugging of the circuit easier.

Via the forum.

App note: nRF24L01+ 2.4GHz wireless transceiver

The nRF24L01+ ICs are 2.4GHz transceivers that only need a few external parts. They’re controlled by a simple SPI protocol, and two extra pins. The IRQ pin signals when data is available and can be used to wake a microconroller with an interrupt.  The CE pin is an input activates/deactivates the transceiver.

126 channels are possible, each channel can support one master and 6 slave devices. It is also possible, with a microcontroller, to build a master unit that communicates over all 126 channels.

Nordic modules are available on eBay for a few bucks. We found the reference design they all seem to be based on in the nRF24L01+ evaluation kit archive. nRF24L01pluss_REFERENCE_MODULES.pdf documents the modules, and the reference module gerber files are included if you want to make your own boards.

A new generation of tactile surfaces with relief effects

Marius tipped us to a new generation of tactile surfaces with relief effects:

Swiss researchers have invented a new generation of tactile surfaces with relief effects – users can feel actual raised keys under their fingers. This technology could have many applications, particularly in improving access to electronic media for the visually impaired.

Via the forum.