Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v4 prototype

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 professionally-made 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 an early Bus Pirate v4 prototype. This design has no software or support, it’s been abandoned in favor of a version with a USB PIC. We’re giving away two PCBs this week, just ask for one in the comments.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v4 prototype”

Logic analyzer client roundup

The most recent documentation is now on the wiki

There are now several open source logic analyzer clients that speak the SUMP protocol, the most popular open logic analyzer protocol currently in use. They should all be compatible with the Logic Sniffer, the Bus Pirate, and the USB Infrared toy.

Our ideal logic analyzer client would be something that compiled cross-platform, and had the features and usability of the Saleae Logic client without .NET.

What clients have you tried, and which is your favorite? Did we leave any out? What features are most important to you?

Our roundup follows below.

Continue reading “Logic analyzer client roundup”

DesignSpark freeware PCB design


We’ve been meaning to check out DesignSpark.

Free from practical constraints on board size, pin counts, layers and output types… Multi-page schematic designs are supported…. supports the importing of Eagle design files and libraries…

It’s not open source, but it could potentially be a favorable closed-ware alternative to Eagle. Eagles’s board size limits don’t usually effect us because we use all SMD parts, and the layer limit is pretty moot because 4layer boards are too expensive for us to prototype.

Multiple sheets is a very attractive feature though. Eagle currently limits you to one sheet, which makes big designs unwieldy. Eagle’s big lock-in seems to be the huge number of user generated part libraries.

For an open alternative, there’s Kicad. We haven’t tried it for a few years, anyone know if it’s been updated?

Via Adafruit.

Extended temperature Bus Pirate

The next batch of Bus Pirate v3b is almost ready. It will ship with bootloader v4.4 and firmware v5.3. It will also be the only known batch of Bus Pirates to use an extended temperature range PIC 24FJ64GA002-E/SS. There weren’t any standard industrial temperature range chips available, so Seeed sourced the extended range version.

These “E” PIC chips have a wider operating temperature range and cost a few cents more. The E chips are rated for -40c to 125c, compared to -40c to 85c with standard industrial chips. In practical terms this doesn’t mean anything because another component might not like higher temperatures, and internal oscillator doesn’t allow for overclocking.

In anticipation of ongoing delays, Seeed has backordered industrial range 24FJ64GA002-I/SS PICs too.

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

USB IR Toy: Sampling mode

See the latest version in the documentation wiki.

The USB IR Toy test firmware v1.04 has a new infrared sampling mode that will be used by the upcoming WinLIRC plugin. This mode times the duration of infrared pulses and sends the measurements to the computer. It’s currently receive-only, but we’ll add a compatible transmit feature in a future update.

Work on the plugin will begin soon, but if you finish it first we’ll send you an IR Toy v1.1 prototype.

Protocol documentation follows.

Continue reading “USB IR Toy: Sampling mode”

USB IR Toy test firmware 1.04

It looks like there’s a bug in v1.04 that makes it stop working after a few days. It can be fixed by connecting the PGC and PGD vias to enter the bootloader and uploading the v1.02 firmware again.

USB IR Toy firmware v1.04 is ready for download. This release has a new mode for better WinLIRC support, and a new firmware query command. The new mode is still being tested, we may need to hand-tune some timing for the best performance.

  • New firmware version query command (v/V)
  • New infrared sampling mode (s/S)

Upgrade instructions and the updated USB IR Toy protocol are in the documentation wiki.

The USB IR Toy is $20, including worldwide shipping.

Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v4 prototype

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 professionally-made 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 an early Bus Pirate v4 prototype. This design has no software or support, it’s been abandoned in favor of a version with a USB PIC. We’re giving away two PCBs this week, just ask for one in the comments.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v4 prototype”

Week in (p)review: July 18, 2010

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

This week should have some fun stuff too:

#twatch with LCD back in stock

The #twatch is a Twitter scrolling, networked LCD screen. Not into Twitter? That’s ok, that #twatch has a backdoor server that works with a bunch of user submitted scripts and plugins.

After a long hiatus, the #twatch with an LCD attached is back in stock at Seeed Studio.

There are still a couple #twatch ethernet LCD backpacks PCB only available too, this is a good option if you have your own LCD.

An assembled #twatch with LCD is $45, and the #twatch PCB only (no LCD) is $30, prices include worldwide shipping.

Bus Pirate: firmware v5.3

Bus Pirate firmware v5.3 is ready for download. This is a recommended update with bug fixes, enhanced features, and major code cleanup. The documentation wiki has been updated with the new commands and macros.

  • Reviewed and updated terminal text
  • SPI sniffer update (reduced minimum CS delay from 50us to 120ns)
  • Removed sniff while CS high option from SPI sniffer (for now)
  • I2C sniffer update (increased max speed from ~70kHz to >100kHz)
  • Corrected LSB/MSB menu quirks
  • Added least significant bit configuration to all modes
  • Added |X command to convert byte X bitorder
  • Code cleanup: removed allowLSB and allowPULLUP variables
  • Fixed wrong CS terminal text in raw3wire mode

Read about the firmware update process for the ds30 Loader GUI (Windows/Linux) and pirate-loader console app (Windows/Linux/Mac). This firmware requires the v4+ bootloader, be sure you upgrade to the v4 bootloader first if you still have bootloader v2.

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

Advertising: Make update

Of the three publications we initially targeted for advertising, Make was the only one that doesn’t publish their rates online. We contacted them and got a price sheet.

When we opened the Make ad rate PDF in Acrobat the embedded font wouldn’t display, but despite the totally garbled text (seen above) we could already tell it wasn’t cheap. We had to upload the PDF to Google Docs and view it there.

Make’s cheapest ads are a budget-busting $6000 for a half-page, and $1950 for something called a ‘direct response marketplace 1/4 page’. Advertising in Make is out of the range of our $1000 budget.

Elektor was mentioned in the comments of the previous post. Circuit Cellar emailed about a cross-promotional advertising deal between the two magazines. We’ll share any additional info.

Gadget Factory stocks buffer wing for Logic Sniffer

The Gadget Factory is now stocking a 16bit buffer wing for the Logic Sniffer for $15. This add-on board gives the Logic Sniffer an additional 16 buffered, 5volt tolerant input channels.

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.

Bus Pirate firmware v5.3 development

Bus Pirate firmware v5.3 is on track for release later this week. This will have some minor bug fixes, upgrades, and new features. You can download the latest nightly release from SVN. Nightlies are usually very stable, but new features may not be completely finalized.

  • Reviewed and updated terminal text
  • SPI sniffer update (reduced minimum CS delay from 50us to 120ns)
  • Removed sniff while CS high option from SPI sniffer (for now)
  • I2C sniffer update (increased max speed from ~70kHz to >100kHz)
  • Corrected LSB/MSB menu quirks
  • Added least significant input/output to all modes
  • Added |X command to convert byte X bitorder
  • Code cleanup: removed allowLSB and allowPULLUP variables

These updates have already gone into the nightly. If you have other requests please let us know in the v5.3 development thread.

USB IR Toy: WinLIRC, irPyton updates

WinLIRC, the Windows version of the popular LIRC PC remote control decoder, has seen a spurt of development after 4 years of no activity.

The updated version uses a new plugin system that should be able to support the USB IR Toy’s irman decoder mode and rawIO modes. We’re also adding a new mode that gives the actual duration of each change in the remote signal.

Development continues on the cross-platform Python GUI for the IR Toy. See the latest build images and source code.

The USB IR Toy is $20, including worldwide shipping.

Logic Sniffer giveaway

Here’s an opportunity to get an Open Logic Sniffer for free. Just name the thing in Hacked Gadgets’ weekly contest. The goal is to let others people guess, so please don’t leave the answer in the comments.

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

Demo: Sure-electronics DE-DP014

To demonstrate some of the new commands from the new firmware 5.2, we interfaced the DE-DP014 from Sure-electronics. This is a single, SPI-like controllable 1.8″ single 5×7 dotmatrix. It has an on-board PIC controller which stores a special ASCII font. The package consist of two units, a simple demo board and two 10-pin cables. Sure provides a decent manual, which is only downloadable from their store.

The DE-DP014 has two 10-pin shrouded headers to provide power, brightness control, data-in, data-out, and clock. The top header is the input and the bottom one the output. Up to 20 units can be daisy chained (according to the manual, we don’t earn enough to buy such an amount!).

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

Continue reading “Demo: Sure-electronics DE-DP014”