Amarino: Android meets Arduino

Several recent posts have dealt with the topic of interfacing Arduino with devices using the Android operating system. Here’s another approach: Amarino. “Android meets Arduino” is a toolkit, basically consisting of an Android application and an Arduino library which will help you to interface with your phone in a new dimension. You can build your own interfaces with little programming experience.

If you want to work with Amarino you need at a minimum an Android phone (Android 2.x works best, however Android 1.6 is also supported to some extent), an Arduino board and a Bluetooth shield for your Arduino. Download the software including the MeetAndroid library and the companion Android app.

NEW PRODUCT: Surface mount protoboard SOIC

Dangerous Protoboard: Bus Pirate v3/SOIC is now available for $10.  This is Sjaak’s special Dangerous Protoboard for working with SOIC chips and SMD parts, it includes a Bus Pirate v3 connector for easy testing.

It has footprints for:

  • 0805 parts (59x)
  • SOIC chips from .150″ to .3″ (max 112 pins)
  • SOT23-3 (16x)
  • 26×10 pin through-hole prototype area
  • Bus Pirate v3 connector and breakout

We do an lot of prototyping and we had the need for a simple SMD prototype board as most of the parts in our partbox are SMD. This PCB allows us quickly to whip up a working prototype using SMD/SMT components, without going through a full development-cycle of creating a nice looking schematic, designing a neat PCB, sending it to the fab house, and waiting for the postman to arrive. This dramatically reduces our development time.

Demo

We used this board for the XMas demonstration we posted last year.

USB VID fundraiser

This board also doubles as a fundraiser for an USB VID for Dangerous Prototypes. We currently use a VID/PID supplied by Microchip for our projects, but that comes with a lot of restrictions which aren’t suitable for open source projects. For example you may not use the VID/PID for more then 10,000 units, which is incompatible with open source licensing.

There are currently no ‘freely’ available numbers tailormade for open source projects. Getting a ‘private’ VID from USB.org is the only real solution, but also a costly one. The cheapest option they offer is a $2,000 onetime fee to get a VID. This one is valid for ever, but $2000 is a lot or money for us… That’s why we started this fundraiser.

Get one

Get your mighty handy SMD protoboard at Seeed for just $10!

What are you going to make with the Dangerous Protoboard? Please drop us a line.


Seeed’s DSO Quad available for preorders

DSO Quad prototype

After the successful DSO Nano Seeed is finishing development of new pocket scope called DSO Quad. Engineering samples started shipping in late December 2010, now the beta testing run is available for preorders at $159. Be aware that the actual shipping is scheduled for March. DSO Quad has two analog inputs up to 36 Msps, two digital inputs and one signal generator output. Waveforms and screens can be saved to 2 MB onboard flash accessible over USB. Display resolution is 400×240 px. Firmware will be open source with support for user applications.

App Note: LEDs allow new remote-controlled lighting applications

A remote-controlled lightning applications:

One benefit LEDs offer in general lighting applications is that they are easier to control remotely. This application note describes a remote-controlled architectural or street-lighting system and describes how to implement power-line or wireless communications control of a lighting system.

Thanks for the tip rsdio!

Virtual USB analyzer

The Virtual USB Analyzer is a well documented free and open source tool for visualizing logs of USB packets, from hardware or software USB sniffer tools. It provides a graphical visualization along with raw hex dumps and high-level protocol analysis. The Analyzer is NOT a hardware USB analyzer or USB sniffer: it is an interface for visualizing USB logs.

To use it, you first need to capture a log of some USB protocol traffic using one of the methods described in their tutorial. Log sources include those produced by Linux’s usbmon sniffer, VMware USB traffic logs, or XML logs from the Ellisys USB Explorer 200 (a hardware USB 2.0 analyzer.) Sample log files are provided to test your installation.

Note that you can capture the log file using any host operating system, and your virtual machine can be running any operating system that supports USB. However, you’ll probably want to analyze the resulting logs on a Linux machine as the VUSB Analyzer tool may be difficult to run on Windows or Mac OS.

Tweet-A-Pot

How do you make a good cup of coffee while traveling home? Mix equal parts of your computer, Arduino, automatic coffee maker, Power Tail Switch and Twitter! In this Instructables, frenzy shows how to setup a Python interface between the Arduino and Twitter, connect the Power Tail Switch between Arduino Pin 13 and ground, and plug your prepped coffee maker into the switch. You now have a Twitter-enabled coffee pot. By Tweeting certain code words you turn the coffee maker on and off! This setup could easily be adapted to control any AC powered device safely handled by the Power Tail Switch.

Via Instructables.

Free PCB Sunday: FT2232H breakout board

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 PCBs for our new FT2232H breakout board. This board has the latest 5th generation FT2232H USB 2.0 I/O chip. The FT2232 is a USB to serial converter like the FT232, but with a bunch more features.

Get the FT2232H breakout board for $27 at Seeed Studio, read about the design on the wiki.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: FT2232H breakout board”

Arduino shield database

Arduino shields stacked

Shieldlist.org is searchable database containing information about more than 200 Arduino shields. Every shield has its own page with short description, link to its homepage, licensing and source information as well as very useful diagram of used pins. more features are planned in the future. If you submit new shield you can get a Freetronics ProtoShield Basic.

Image source (John Boxall CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

27C3: Building Custom Disassemblers

FX of Phenoelit recently presented a talk at the 27C3 CCC in Berlin, Germany on the topic of instruction set reverse engineering. Topics include obtaining byte code, analyzing it for basic properties, finding addressing modes, and implementing an IDA Pro processor module. The primary focus is on the transformation of byte code back into mnemonic representation where only the reverse transformation is available (i.e. you have the respective assembler).

The presentation is over an hour and the video is divided into seven parts. (As is sometimes the case with CCC videos, the first segment content does not begin until well into the 15 minute segment. These are volunteer produced and are being released a little over a week since the conference, so please be understanding. And just start at 14:20 in the above video.)

App Note: Overview of industrial motor control Systems

An overview of industrial motor control systems:

This overview of industrial motor controls highlights the differences and subsystems for DC motor, brushless DC, and AC induction motors. An in-depth analysis of critical subsystems focuses on monitoring and measuring current; sensing temperature; sensing motor speed, position, and movement; monitoring and controlling multichannel currents and voltages; and high-accuracy motor control with encoder data interfaces.

The above application note may be applicable to the recent thread on Controlling Air-Core gauges, particularly the following:

Incremental information is typically transmitted to the controller by quadrature signals, i.e., two signals phase shifted by 90°. These signals can be in analog form (sine + cosine) or in binary form. Absolute position information, in contrast, is only communicated by a serialized binary data stream through RS-482 or RS-422.

Thanks for the tip rsdio!

27C3: File – Print – Electronics

In this presentation from the 27C3 conference held recently in Berlin, Germany, Jeff Gough demonstrates the next step in hardware development, the circuit board printer. As an alternative to dependence on prefab dev boards and kits, Jeff outlines his efforts in reverse engineering an Epson inkjet printer to build a rapid prototyping machine for circuit boards.

Star map: A breathtaking piece of sky

MrTrick made a star map:

Now that Christmas is over, most of us have gone back to work, and the decorations are being packed away, the fake Christmas tree is likely to use up the most space in storage, and you only use it once a year! It’s a shame to throw it away, but what other purpose could a fake Christmas tree have?

I hacked my old Christmas tree apart, and built a massive (seriously, this thing is 2m wide) Star Map with an pretty accurate view of the southern skies, including the constellations.

There are thousands of points of light from optical fibers and white LEDs, and an integrated RF module controls the stars and the appropriately red mood lighting.

It may not be as accurate as a planetarium, but who has a planetarium hanging above their head?

Via contact form.

Seeed’s Pick and Place machine

More about Seeed Studio’s new Pick and Place machine:

We don’t want to keep pushing our PCBA factory any more. All factories in Shenzhen prefers quantity to keep their machine running, so small orders will take high setup fee and unnecessary lead time. It might take only half day to assemble 100 pcs Bus Pirate but has to wait for 3-5 days for the bigger batch ends.

It’s an Autotronik BS384 instead of the Mancorp machines used by Adafruit, Microbuilder.edu, and others.

Introduction to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

rsdio tipped us to an app note on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

This tutorial explains how magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems use the reaction of hydrogen atoms moving in a magnetic field to yield a detailed medical image. The types of magnetic fields typically used are described. The note explains why today’s higher resolution MRI systems rely on super-conducting magnets. The note also discusses the formation of 3-D images by proper alignment of gradient coils and their interaction with RF signaling. A functional block diagram of a typical MRI system is presented.

Thanks rsdio!

27C3: Embedded Reverse Engineering Tools and Techniques

Nathan Fain and Vadik presented at the 27C3 Chaos Communications Congress held recently in Berlin, Germany, on a topic of interest to us all: JTAG/Serial/FLASH/PCB Embedded Reverse Engineering Tools and Techniques. Check out their webpage for full documentation and analysis.