RonZ posted pictures of a Bus Pirate v2go that is being made and sold in New Zealand.
We never thought the Bus Pirate would be so popular. Closed-source companies usually feel threatened by third-party manufacturers, but we welcome the additional exposure, advertising, and contributions that it brings.
Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors Adafruit, Open Source Control Systems, and eHaJo.
Via the forum.
voidptr shared a CPLD development board he made a few years ago:
i used few times some xilinx xc9572xl with pleasure (and few other sizes).
i like the family 5V tolerance, so i can plug that everywhere…
Via the forum.
Here are some examples by manekinen of what can happen when an apparently high reverse voltage is applied to several AVRs.
Via Hack a Day.
Think you have bats in the belfry? If you have a PIC 12F683, ultrasonic piezo receiver and piezo speaker, micro-examples has a project that purports to detect the presence of bats and sound a piezo alarm. The schematic and C source are available for download.
We can envision a modification which would transmit an alert wirelessly for remote bat detection in areas such as an attic.
Hack a day now has a forum. They have Help Me, Brainstorming, events, and Project log categories.
Via Hack a day
Jack Gassett put together a series of videos, at The Gadget Factory demonstrating how to debug the internal logic of an fpga using the open workbench logic sniffer.
“When I was debugging the UART communications last week I discovered a new way to debug internal FPGA logic. I put together a screencast for those who are interested in using their OLS to debug internal FPGA logic.”
Get your own open workbench logic sniffer at Seeed Studio for $50.
Via the forum , Thank you jack
rasmus has another RLE update for the Logic Sniffer.
- The finish command is now 0x05.
- Timer removed in favor of the finish command.
- The code has been optimized and made easier to read.
Two independent updates of the logic analyzer core are currently underway in the forum. There’s also updates to the Verilog version we covered yesterday.
Get a Logic Sniffer for $50, with free worldwide shipping.
Via the forum.
People put linux on their flash drives all the time. They also get hackintosh on their hard drives quite often. However, it’d be nice to be able to get the same live experience we get with Linux using OS X. With a distribution of OS X 10.6.2 called iPortable Snow, we can.
Will Fancher at Lifehacker shows how to load hackintosh on a bootable thumb drive. You’ll need a Mac running OS X and a USB thumb drive (minimum 8 GB) and a downloaded free copy of iPortable Snow. The hack produces a version of Mac OS X that will boot on most Intel computers.
The popularity of the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol has grown exponentially since its introduction in the mid-1980s. Today it’s used in automotive monitoring and control systems, medical equipment and industrial automation. Also, more microcontrollers are supporting this protocol.
Here’s a Microchip Application Note covering the basics of the CAN protocol.
dogsbody rewrote the entire Logic Sniffer FPGA core in Verilog and added nearly all the features of a HP 16550A workbench logic analyzer. Check it out:
My version of the fpga uses 85% of the slices, keeps the legacy triggers, meets timing easily (at 105Mhz), and adds:
Trigger Terms:
10 more 32-bit masked value comparisons.
2 range checks.
2 edge checks (rising, falling, both, neither).
2 36-bit timers (10ns to 600sec range).States:
16 state FSM
Each state can use any combination (AND/NAND/OR/NOR/XOR/NXOR) of the trigger terms for detecting a “hit” condition, and “else” condition, or “capture” condition.Each state also has a 20-bit hit count that must be reached before a full “hit” occurs. Hit actions include setting trigger(run),
starting/stopping timers, and advancing to the next state.The “else” condition lets you punt to another state.
The “capture” condition lets you control what gets sampled into RAM, until you flip the trigger.
…Grab the 16550a user’s guide. I think you’ll be surprised how much got squeezed in.
Get a Logic Sniffer for $50, with free worldwide shipping.
Via the forum.
Prototype with QFP size surface mount chips. Currently available in 0.50mm, 0.65mm, and 0.80mm.
Don’t know your size? See choosing a breakout board.
Ril3y designed a laser cut plexi glass enclosure made for Seeed Studio’s Rainbow Cube Kit.
Carl_electro posted pictures of a USB IR Toy made on a protoboard. This looks like the updated through-hold design with a frequency detector.
Check out the design, and get a professionally made PCB for $7.
Via the forum.
Ed Zarick has released details on his Arduino vehicular control system known as JEEPuter. Combining an Arduino UNO, shift registers, LCD display, pushbuttons and a relay board, Ed interfaced this controller to his Wrangler’s ignition, garage door opener, lighting systems (with light-sensitivity control), radios and more. The JEEPuter also includes a time and temperature display. Pretty much any vehicle system capable of being operated by a switch could be coded into in this system. (The overhead-mounted radio scanner earns this project extra geek points!)
The Arduino source code is available.
At the DEFCON 16 hacker conference, Fouad Kiamilev and Ryan Hoover gave a presentation on the security threat presented by hardware Trojans, extra circuitry illicitly added to hardware during its manufacture. When triggered, the hardware Trojan performs an illicit action such as leaking secret information, allowing attackers clandestine access or control, or disabling or reducing functionality of the device. While this 18 minute presentation doesn’t offer details on how to program FPGAs to compromise a system, it serves to illustrate how the growing use of programmable hardware devices means that our hardware is increasingly vulnerable to a Trojan attack.
This talk explores three possible methods that a hardware Trojan can use: thermal, optical and radio. The hardware platform for this demonstration was the Spartan-3E Starter Kit from XILINX. The objective of their Trojan was to illicitly leak the AES encryption keys from a compromised device once triggered.
The illustrations are available as a PDF download.
Junbeom So, Lee Ji Eun, Yi-Seo Hyeon, Heo-Hyeoksu & Jeong Minhui of Yanko Design, have developed a new power cord that interlocks, reducing that ugly pet trap behind your desk. We wonder if they will tackle USB cords next.
Via I new idea
The new forum is open and ready for posts. We hope you enjoy the added features of the new phpBB software. It’s better supported and more open sourcy than the old Simple Machines Forum.
The migration took longer than expected because our host timed out while uploading the new database. We had to break it into parts and do it a little at a time.
Everything transferred: users and passwords, posts, messages, permissions, topics, attachments.
Over the next few hours we’ll finish up with fixes to the appearance, fix some unrecognized attachments, and redirect old topic links to the new forum.
The forum is currently locked for new posts. You can still read and browse messages, but you will not be able to post.
We’re about halfway there, please check back for more updates.
An introduction to programmable logic controllers (PLCs):
This tutorial offers an in-depth introduction into programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The article starts with an overview of the history and the role PLCs in factory automation. The basic principles of PLC operation are discussed. The core modules of an industrial-control system are examined: the analog input function, analog output functions, the distributed control (fieldbus) interface, digital inputs and outputs (I/Os), the CPU, and isolated power. Functional block diagrams and recommended devices are included for each function.
Thanks for the tip rsdio!
