Syringe-based 3D food printer

Fab@home‘s team is working on a syringe-based 3D printer that builds food one squirt at a time.

We think this is a really cool project, but question how many foods can be tackled with layer deposition. Cooking requires a lot of techniques. Take flour – gentle handling for flaky biscuit, kneaded to developed gluten for a crusty bread, or really banged about for a chewy bagel. It seems like a much more versatile robot would be needed to tackle these tasks.

View binary files in the Logic Sniffer client

Cactus wanted to view a binary logic dump in the Logic Sniffer client. He made a Ruby script to convert files to the OLS format.

I needed to look at some data from a binary file that wasn’t grabbed by the Logic sniffer hardware, but the software doesn’t support that (yet? :)

So after jawi supplied with some file format docs I hacked this small Ruby script together. It simply reads a binary file and outputs (to the console) an .ols formatted file. You can specify sample rate, number of channels, little and big endian.

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

Thanks cactus! Via the forum.

C2000 Piccolo: F2806x MCU

rsdio tipped us to the floating-point Piccolo MCUs from Texas Instruments:

C2000™ Piccolo MCUs offer an enhanced math engine specifically designed to simplify programming and optimize performance in real-time control applications that may require integrated communications. Developers of energy-efficient motor control and renewable energy applications can now use a single F2806x MCU to cost-effectively execute control loops and multiple processing-intensive power line communications (PLC) protocols and modulation schemes.

F2806x device features:

  • Achieve leading efficiency and functionality with cutting-edge math unit
  • Increased memory range of 52 – 100KB RAM and 128 – 256 KB flash

Resources:

The controlSTICK is currently out of stock, but if you want one then perhaps the promo code will still work if you order now.

Thanks rsdio! Via the forum.

Altera intros MAX V CPLD dev kit

Altera has announced the release of their MAX V CPLD line and companion dev kit. Altera’s webcast describes the dev kit and demos a few simple examples.

The MAX V family of low cost and low power CPLDs offers density ranging from 40 to 2,210 logic elements (LEs) (32 to 1,700 equivalent macrocells) and up to 271 I/Os, making them suitable programmable solutions for I/O expansion, bus and protocol bridging, power monitoring and control, FPGA configuration, and analog IC interface. They also feature on-chip flash storage, internal oscillator and memory functionality, with single unit prices between $1 and $12 depending upon features and IO lines.

For more detailed information see the MAX V handbook and dev kit description.

Analyzing a modern cryptographic RFID system

Henryk Plötz and Milosch Meriac gave a presentation at the recent 27C3 Chaos Communications Congress in Berlin, Germany, in which they demystified the HID iClass. One of the challenges of breaking iCLASS RFID readers was to extract the firmware and the security keys of RW400 readers without leaving visible traces like breaking the case open. This challenge can be solved by exploiting a vulnerability in PIC18FXX2/XX8 microcontrollers that allows dumping the firmware by only accessing the ICSP pins. Check out their docs exploring the HID iClass security system.

Introduction to computed tomography (CT) medical imaging

rsdio tipped us to an app note on a computed tomography (CT) medical imaging.

This tutorial explains how computed tomography (CT) imaging systems generate 3-D images of internal body structures. The high-end spiral CT technique is explained, as is the method by which light collected from photodiodes is processed into an electrical signal and eventually converted to a digital format by a digital acquisition system (DAS). This conversion process must happen quickly, which makes ADC sampling speeds and resolutions critical for CT designs.

Thanks rsdio!

Parallax releases Propeller C3 board


Parallax has released their Propeller C3 application board.

Features include: Multicore Propeller P8X32A-Q44 with 5.00 MHz socketed crystal to upgrade for over-clocking experiments, 64 KB Propeller boot EEPROM holds boot image plus 32 KB extra for data, USB or external power sources, dual high-current filtered 1.5 A 3.3/5 V voltage regulators, VGA port, RCA Video/Audio ports for NTSC/PAL composite video, PS/2 port for keyboard or mouse, 1 MB SPI FLASH memory, 2-channel Microchip MCP3202 SPI A/D converter with 12-bit resolution, (2) Microchip 32K x 8 bit SPI SRAMs, MicroSD card w/SPI interface, 2 x 16 headers exporting IO and system signals, servo headers. An interesting aspect of the board is its novel SPI bus design that allows all the onboard peripherals to be accessed with a single SPI bus (3 signals) along with chip-select logic (2 signals) that supports up to 8 devices in total.

555 based AM radio transmitter

Rtty21 has posted an Instructables project using the 555 timer to build an AM radio transmitter. By adding just a transistor, several capacitors, resistors and a 5K pot you will be on the air in the 600 kHz portion of the AM dial. While the range of this transmitter is relatively short, you could possibly interface it with a microcontroller controlled switch to work as a remote signalling device.

Via Hack a Day.

“8 Bits” Still going strong!

With the proliferation of enhanced mobile devices in our everyday lives, it is amazing that a staggering %60 of embedded devices still use 8 bit architectures. Using MCUs based on 30 year old technology does not sound like the bleeding edge consumers would expect.

Micro controllers and microprocessors like the 8051 and Z80 don’t lend themselves well to smart phone use, so what have the silicon manufactures done to keep up? An article at the Ganssle Group explains some of the updates to some of the most mature architectures.

What’s your go-to architecture? Vote in the forum.

Python wins the TIOBE Programming Language Award of 2010!

Python wins the TIOBE Programming Language Award of 2010!

Python programmers love this language’s simplicity and it has become a very useful tool for those who love fast prototyping and quick development time. It has been proven useful in a lot of areas:
– GUI programming (such as wxPython)
– Engineering calculations and computations (such scipy and numpy)
– Communicating to various embedded devices
– Cross-Platform Programming (Windows, Linux, MAC OS X, Nokia S60, Android, etc.)

Python is available for download here.

Bonus: Test your Python Challenge here.

Unbrick the Bullet2 with the Bus Pirate

Bullet2 is a weatherized outdoor wifi node. Daedalus unbricked the Bullet2 (original , machine translation ) using the Bus Pirate to talk to the UART interface.

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 contact form.