Big Mess o’ Wires has an update on the backcountry logger project:
Also in this week’s mailbag was the snap-together case for the classic logger. This case was designed using vector drawing software, and the six sides were intended to snap together using beveled tabs on the egde of each piece.
Every Tuesday we give away some extra PCBs via Twitter. This post was announced on twitter. The 6th and 23rd person who retweet it get free PCBs. We changed the approach this week due to auto-retweeters grabbing boards first. Thanks for the heads-up on auto-retweeters JT! Love it, hate it? Let us know in the comments below.
This week we’re giving away two PCB codes. Pick your own PCB from the free PCB drawer.
Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week:
You can get IR Toy v2 for $22.05, including world wide shipping.
Continue reading “Free PCB coupon to RT #6 & #23 @dangerousproto”
O’Reilly is offering a free webcast on OpenStack, An Open Source Cloud Framework. The talk will be presented by Andrew Shafer, whose background is in high performance computing, computational science, embedded Linux development, web frameworks and Agile methods. OpenStack is a global collaboration of developers and cloud computing technologists producing the ubiquitous open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds.
O’Reilly’s program description:
Open Source, Devops and Cloudcomputing, none exists without the other. Join Andrew Clay Shafer for a guided tour of the OpenStack projects and ecosystems. He’ll start with the history and context of the project, then walk through the architecture and some of the tools to deploy and operate the services.
The one hour live webcast is scheduled for 10 AM PT on July 21, 2011. You can submit your registration here.
Teholabs has two new development board ideas:
The design of two new Stellaris Cortex M3 ARM development boards: Cygni and Procyon, is done or almost done. Since the designs aren’t final I can still take input on them, and I have applied some feedback from Eridani to the design.
Via the forum.
Well, yes, if you’re Lower East Kitchen you do. For the past four months they’ve worked tirelessly on designing a DIY sous vide kit. And now they’ve built the prototype! The device uses an Arduino to control a heating element under the cook pot. The Arduino monitors a temperature sensor and uses a solid state relay to switch up to 10A of current at 120 VAC. The heating element is not included in their kit; just the temp sensing and control brains. As they point out in their blog, this design is flexible enough for any type of temperature control— whether it be a sous vide, smoker, refrigerator, or even a solder reflow oven.
Project details can be found on the Lower East Kitchen web page and on their blog post on QandAbe.com.
Source code is available on the Lower East Kitchen Github page.
Want a graph of data you’re collecting, or a cool GUI interface for a project? Micset XEdit wants to do that:
XEdit Project Editor is Integrated development environment to configure, develop and manage [supervisory control and data acquisition] applications.
XEdit Project Editor is used to create projects, multiproject, configure devices, tags/points, alarms, users, events, server-side scripts and others
It lets you make cool GUI to control a microcontroller project, or display sensor data. No word on the license though.
m8051 dead-bugged a tiny QFN accelerometer on a dip breakout board and tested it with the Bus Pirate.
We were trying to work out the new Accelerometer MMA8453Q which is a I2C based 10 bit accelerometer. Bus Pirate helped us to debug the issues and also talk to the MMA8453Q chip.
Thanks Boseji! Via the forum.
Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
Web platform v1.1 is back in stock at Seeed Studio. This is the board that powered the Thermal Tweeter Twitter printer.
Get an assembled web platform for $40, including worldwide shipping.
Honken designed a case for the Bus Pirate v3.5/v4 form factor.
Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
Not content to leave well enough alone with their first humorous video promo for the MachXO2, the people at Lattice Semi released the above video for their Lattice ECP3 family of FPGA devices.
Here’s a concise 28 page tutorial doc from Xilinx entitled A CPLD VHDL Introduction.
Alan posted this project at FromOrbit demonstrating how to implement three wire control of a DLG2416 display using a CPLD. The chip he chose was the Xilinx XC9536 which is the 36 macrocell version of the XC9572 CPLD found in our CPLD Development Board, so this can be implemented on our board with room to spare.
As Alan describes it:
In my design I ended up with a simple 9-bit shift register that the controlling microcontroller shifts data into. This data is made up of two “command” bits and seven “data” bits. The microcontroller sets a latch that triggers a state machine to look at the command and decide what to do with the given data. The supported command set is very simple. You have a “clear”, a “load character into current position”, a “load character into current position and advance position”, and a “goto position”. I first built this for a custom LED ticker someone wanted as a novelty add-on for one of those en iyi casino siteleri clones—they just needed something cheap that could scroll basic payouts in real time. So by using these simple commands, you can pretty much just send straight ASCII at the controller with an additional two bits and you’re done! No tricky software required.
Check out FromOrbit for the command table and Verilog source code.
Last week Ian did a Skype interview with Open Source Hardware Junkies. It’s up today, listen in if that’s your kind of thing:
Need to figure out a chip…fast?
Bus Pirate may be just what you have been looking for.
Designed by Dangerous Prototypes, the Bus Pirate is a universal bus interface that can slash the learning curve when you are figuring out a chip.
Every month Dangerous Prototypes releases a new open source hardware project.
They have a great line up of useful tools and a fantastic business model. Listen to the show and learn about both.
P.S. It’s easy to start your own dangerous prototype – especially with free PCBs!
Thanks Michael!
We use HC-49/US surface mount crystals whenever possible. HC-49/US is like a through-hole metal can crystal, but with surface mount pads. They’re about $0.50 in 1s, while the smaller bar-type SMD crystals start at $1.
Brian found a new line of crystals at mouser that’s about a quarter cheaper:
I use an ABM7 XTAL on Eridani. I noticed there is now ABM2 which are slightly bigger but cost about [$0.79]. Might be of use to you for a size/price tradeoff.
EG: ABM2-16.000MHZ-D4Y-T ABRACON Crystals
On caps I too prefer to use ceramic whenever possible at least up to 10 uF. Normally electrolytic (Al) for anything above that.
It will probably fit our standard SMD crystal footprint, we were pretty generous with the footprint spacing. The ABM2 is added to the partlist. Thanks Brian!
Via the comments.
From the comments on our earlier post: Touchstone TS1001 op-amp demo board unboxing:
TI offers evaluation boards for opamps as well. These are unpopulated PCBs, you can choose between inverting and noninverting configuration and between different package types.
The boards can be found by searching for “dem-opa” on TI’s website. You can get them for free in TI’s eStore.
Hint: you can even use them for non-TI products :)
Update: Juani_c says they’re now $5 in the TI store.
Update II: “This tool is free when ordered via the eStore and is limited to three boards. If the order is placed through standard order entry, the cost is $5.00 per board.”
Thanks Jan Weber! Via the comments.
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service.
This week we’re giving away two coupon codes for the fee PCB drawer. Pick your own PCB. Remember you get unlimited free PCBs now – finish one and we’ll send you another!
Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:
There are alot of Arduino + temperature sensor tutorials out there, but what makes this one different is the use of the DS18B20 sensor. Each DS18B20 has a unique 64-bit serial code, which allows multiple DS18B20s to function on the same 1-Wire bus. Thus, it is simple to use one microprocessor to control many DS18B20s distributed over a large area.
In this article Bildr presents the code and circuit diagram for interfacing one DS18B20 with the Arduino. This project requires you to have the “One Wire” folder in your Arduino Library.
Thingspeak bills itself as “an open application platform designed to enable meaninful connections between people and things.” The graphic above demonstrates how dynamic temperature level readings can be made available on the internet via Thingspeak.
In working with the Thingspeak API Sirleech has developed code he calls RestduinoThingspeak. It’s a Python script to read a RESTduino Analog pin and upload to Thingspeak. He says:
This is a great way to offload HTTP processing from your Arduino to another computer. It’s useful when you still want to be able control the Arduino over a web interface (in this case via a RESTful web service) for automation application where it’s desired to log data as well as control the device.
hlipka made a logic analyzer with 2 oscilloscope channels that uses a Cypress PSoC chip. It works with SUMP clients like Open Logic Sniffer.
Goal of this project is to develop a combination of 2-channel oscilloscope with a 32-channel logic analyzer. Sample speed will be 1 Msps, with a depth of 6k samples (when using one analog and 16 digital channels, depth can be doubled). Since it only needs to use a single PSoC chip, it can be made with relatively low cost, and can be made really small.
The latest files are linked in the forum.
An app note on a LED brightness controller:
In this circuit, a digital potentiometer (DS1869) aids an LED-driver IC (MAX16800) in providing manual control of the LED brightness. The circuit also provides thermal protection against excessive heat and overload conditions.
Thanks rsdio!
