Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate EEPROM 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’s free PCB is a new version of the 3 EEPROM test board for the Bus Pirate. We tried to make it cheaper by using SMD footprints that Seeed will fill with parts, and through-hole footprints for working with your own chips. This board is still hung up by the 1-wire components. Maxim might give away lots of free samples, but purchasing 1-wire parts, SMD or through-hole, is really expensive.

To get one of these PCBs, please suggest a part for a future Bus Pirate demo board in the comments. Your suggestion can be a type of part, or a specific part number if you know it. We’ll give away 2 or 4 of these this week.

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Week in (p)review: September 26, 2010

Here’s some highlights from the past two weeks, in case you missed them:

This week should have some fun stuff too:

  • This week we’ll be firmware update central with updates for the Bus Pirate, USB IR Toy, and the Logic Sniffer
  • A new compile of the Bus Pirate PIC programming app
  • A new ROM update application for the Logic Sniffer with extended self-test features
  • A few Bus Pirate v4 and the Bus Pirate PIC programming adapters will be manufactured for developers to test
  • Soldered prototypes of the mini-blaster and Bus Blaster
  • Documentation for the new version of the Web Platform currently shipping at Seeed
  • Follow our in-progress projects on the wiki


Bus Pirate oscilloscope script

Hwmayer created a simple oscilloscope python script for the Bus Pirate. The latest version adds triggers, and sampling rates up to 1K using a new command in the upcoming firmware.

Get a Bus Pirate v3b for $30, including worldwide shipping at Seeed Studio. Adafruit also has the Bus Pirate and probe cables in stock and ready to ship.

Via the forum.

Report: Open Hardware Summit 2010

Our ace reporter Chris was at the Open Hardware Summit yesterday, and sent this report:

Made it over here, place is really packed so looks like there’s a lot of interest in the open hardware concept.  Crowd seems to be heavy on artistic, technology outreach, grad student types vs hobbyists & traditional engineers.  Some notable comments from morning speakers to add later.  Kind of two themes so far – those making and sharing stuff without worrying to much contrasted by those thinking about how relationship with tech companies & ip law should work.

Much on my mind at the moment is dilemma of openess to end user modification vs cost, comparing for example the android phone i’m holding vs. A full kit of bug labs modules providing comparable functionality as a project platform – can open hw be as cost effective as repurposing mass market consumer hw, even though doing the later often requires relying on security bugs or left over debug headers to gain full ownership of what was supposed to be a locked down product?

Thanks Chris!

#twatch, USB Infrared Toy now CC-BY-SA

To mark the one-year anniversary of Dangerous Prototypes, and timed suspiciously close to the Open Hardware Summit, we’re releasing the #twatch and USB Infrared Toy under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. These designs were formally restricted to non-commercial use, now they’re available for any use, including commercial derivatives.  All our* projects and content are now licensed CC-BY-SA/GPL (or even less restrictive).

The source code for these projects was always open, but the compiled firmware remains under a non-commercial license. This is because of non-distributable source code libraries and USB ID number sub-license agreements. We’re working hard to resolve that too.

A #twatch ethernet LCD backpack is $30, or $45 with an LCD, including worldwide shipping. The USB Infrared Toy is $20, including worldwide shipping.

Continue reading “#twatch, USB Infrared Toy now CC-BY-SA”

Happy Birthday #twatch

It’s been a year since our first project, the #twatch ethernet LCD backpack (part 1, part 2). The #twatch scrolls the current top 10 topics on Twitter. It also works with programs like LCD Smartie and LCDproc to display PC stats and playlist info. There’s a bunch of great user-contributed scripts too.

Nearly 500 #twatches were made, but that’s probably the end of production. There’s just one assembled #twatch PCB left, and a couple #twatches with LCDs already attached. Get the very first Dangerous Prototype while there’s still some left.

An assembled #twatch is $30, including worldwide shipping. A #twatch with an LCD is $45, including worldwide shipping.

More photos and videos of the #twatch after the break.

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Logic Sniffer laser cut case

siklosi made parag0n’s laser cut case for the Logic Sniffer. This is the second fabbed copy of parag0n’s case that we’ve seen.

Here’s some other user-submitted cases.

You can order the Logic Sniffer at Seeed Studio for $45, including worldwide shipping. Don’t forget that Seeed now has probe cables for $6 each. Every order supports Logic Sniffer development.

Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate LCD adapter

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’ve got two PCBs for the Bus Pirate LCD adapter to give away. The adapter connects the Bus Pirate to an HD44780 character LCD. Just ask for one of the free PCBs in the comments.

An assembled LCD adapter is available for $9 at Seeed Studio, including a connector cable. Each purchase supports the development of the Bus Pirate project.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate LCD adapter”

Seeeduino Film V0.9b

The Seeeduino Film we covered earlier is now available. Film is a flexible development board that includes an Atmega168 with the Arduino bootloader. For portable or wearable applications, it has an on-board li-poly battery charger.

Albert has been working hard to get this design right, congraduations on the first batch! Maybe when this is perfected we can make a Bus Pirate film.

Seeed will be giving some Films at the Open Hardware Summit. We have two OHS tickets to give away too, if you’re able to use them please make contact.

If you buy a Film, consider grabbing the new LCD adapter for your Bus Pirate.

Prototype: Bus Pirate LCD adapter v2

The Bus Pirate LCD adapter v2 enables the mysterious LCD mode on your Bus Pirate. The Bus Pirate can’t control an HD44780 LCD alone, it needs help from a few extra parts. Read the how-to and build your own adapter, or buy it assembled for $9.

The v2 adapter is a complete rework of the v1 adapter. v2 uses an inexpensive 74HCT595 logic chip that achieves excellent display refresh rates. v1 used an I2C IO expander chip that was painfully slow and too expensive to consider producing.

LCD adapters, including a connector cable, are shipping now from Seeed. This is not a preorder, the hardware is tested and ready to ship. This is the first time a Dangerous Prototype is available the day it was published – here’s hoping we can keep it up for future projects!

Programmable memory guide

EPROMs are old-school data storage chips with a little window that exposes the silicon inside. Once these chips are programmed, they can only be erased by shining ultraviolet light through the window.

The EPROM help page is a guide to identifying and working with these devices. It also covers more modern programmable memory like EEPROM, flash, NVRAM, and PROM.

Image: Poil (CC-BY-SA)