W1N9Zr0’s Bus Pirate PIC programmer

We previously posted this combined development board and Bus Pirate PIC programmer from W1N9Zr0.

The C# source for the PIC programmer is now available in an archive, or grab it from the SVN. It uses the Bus Pirate’s raw-wire binary mode and an external 13volt power supply to program a PIC 16F628, but it can be extended to work with other PIC 12/16/18 chips. More about the programmer in the forum.

You can 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.

Image by W1N9Zr0, CC-BY-SA-NC.

Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v3b

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.

This week we’re giving away two Bus Pirate v3b PCBs. v3b is a minor update to the Bus Pirate with a few tweaks that make it easier to manufacture, read all about it here.

You can 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 “Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v3b”

Logic Sniffer mention in Nuts & Volts

Openbench Logic Sniffer is an open source logic analyzer. It’s designed to support the SUMP logic analyzer software at the lowest possible cost. This project is a collaboration between the Gadget Factory and Dangerous Prototypes.

The Logic Sniffer got a mention in a Nuts & Volts article titled Reading and Writing an EEPROM Using the Arduino. From the online viewer:

Without a logic analyzer, it would be extremely difficult to troubleshoot problems with a digital circuit like this. I use a Rigol DS1052D but there are many less expensive alternatives including an open source hardware/software logic analyzer that is around $45.

The author’s goal in the article is to copy an EEPROM. That would be even easier and cheaper with the Bus Pirate than an Arduino, but learning how to code it yourself is a ton of fun too.

The OLS is currently on back order, but the next batch should arrive soon. You can back order the OLS at Seeed Studio for $45, including worldwide shipping.

Thanks for the tip RoyalBlu!

A few words on Million dollar baby

Adafruit gave a presentation at Foo Camp about businesses that make money selling open source hardware. We’re ecstatic to be included in the ‘approaching a million in revenue’ category with household names like Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, Bug Labs, and DIY Drones.

It went down like this… pt sent an email to a bunch of open source hardware people. In our case, he asked if we might hit 1 million dollars in revenue in 12 to 24 months.

We immediately hit Wikipedia because we weren’t exactly sure what revenue means. Turns out revenue is total income, before expenses (revenue-expenses=profit). That’s a lot more realistic than a million in profit, but we haven’t even been doing this for a year.

A million in revenue is 33 thousand Bus Pirates, 22 thousand Logic Sniffers, or a load of USB IR Toys. It’ll take a lot to get there, but if we keep turning out an open source project every month for the next two years it’s conceivable we might do it. With a lot of luck and a bunch of awesome supporters.

The presentation has generated a lot of interest in our relationship with Seeed, and our light-weight business model. We’ll address these in more detail in an upcoming series of posts about the business side of stuff. In the mean time you can also ask questions in the new OS hardware biz forum.

The Dangerous Prototypes slide has us in the Netherlands, but we’re actually an  Iowa, United States based business (though some of the crew studies outside the US, and all manufacturing and fulfillment is done in Shenzhen, China). For more about the history of the Bus Pirate design you can read the BPv3 how-to, the preorder process we use with Seeed Studio is explained here.

Thanks to everyone who has bought a project, posted in the forum, or left a comment, your support is what makes this all possible.

Web platform: Telnet server hacking

Trev got the Microchip telnet server demo working on the web platform. Then, he took it further and hacked it to work with telnet clients on multiple systems.  There’s a lot of great info about the Microchip TCPIP stack and telnet services in his writeup.

We covered Trev’s earlier work with the Microchip TCP/IP stack last week.

The web platform is $40 including worldwide shipping. There are still web platforms available, but when they’re gone we don’t plan to make more.

#twatch: Winamp plugin update

Yves released an updated Winamp plugin that controls the #twatch ethernet LCD screen:

Changes include : custom char to display current playing status, new look for the progress bar, improved error condition handling (still not bullet proof but getting there), and my part for the environment, the backlight is now turned off when the playing status is stopped.

We covered the previous version here. There’s a lot of other scripts in the #twatch SVN folder too.

There are still a few #twatch ethernet LCD backpacks (PCB only) available for $30, including worldwide shipping. You’ll need to add your own 4*20 LCD screen, like this one from Seeed Studio.

Web platform: uIP TCP/IP stack working

A few months ago we started a port of the uIP TCP/IP stack for the dsPIC33-based web platform. Bonybrown picked up the source and got it working. The current version can accept 10 simultaneous telnet connections, and has ping times of 0.68ms:

Next steps I’d like to try are to replace the polling loop with an interrupt from the ENC28J60 when packets arrive, and to try using DMA to get the packets into and out of the ENC28J60.

Get details and download the firmware in the forum. We’ve also moved the latest source to the project SVN.

There are still a couple web platforms available for immediate delivery at Seeed Studio, when they’re gone we don’t plan to make more. The web platform is $40, including worldwide shipping.

Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v3b

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.

This week we’re giving away two Bus Pirate v3b PCBs. v3b is a minor update with a few tweaks that make it easier to manufacture, read all about it here.

You can 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 “Free PCB Sunday: Bus Pirate v3b”

Microchip demo pages on web platform

Trev spent a lot of time hacking and documenting the Microchip TCP/IP stack for the web platform. Trev’s extensive write-up shows how he got these features working:

  • SMTP mail client, email demo
  • HTTP authentication, adding authentication to the email demo
  • MD5 hash demo
  • HTTP2 demo, multiple HTTP connections
  • Custom dynamic web pages

More in the forum post.

There are still a couple web platforms available for immediate delivery at Seeed Studio, when they’re gone we don’t plan to make more. The web platform is $40, including worldwide shipping.

USB Infrared Toy firmware v1.02

There’s a new firmware, hardware, and source archive for the USB Infrared Toy available for download here. This release includes a very minor firmware update, there’s no real compelling reason to upgrade:

  • USB device descriptor properly reports bus-powered device
  • Removed padding from manufacturer string in descriptor
  • Increased delay before and after self-test
  • Updated self-test version string (V102)

Upgrade instructions are in the USB Infrared Toy how-to.

The archive also includes the v1a schematic and circuit board. We swapped out the broken Eagle IR LED footprint and replaced it with a standard 5mm LED footprint to avoid confusion in the future. There’s also a few minor cosmetic and value updates.

The USB IR Toy is $20, including worldwide shipping. At the time of this post it’s on back order, but Seeed is testing the latest units now and they should ship any time. The latest batch of IR Toys have the LED correctly installed.

Image courtesy Seeed Studio.

Prototype: Bus Pirate v3b

The next batch of Bus Pirates will be the ‘b’ revision of the v3 hardware. V3b has the same functions, size, and shape of v3a, and it takes the same firmware. We just made a few minor updates based on our experience manufacturing the v3a over the last few months. Our prototype is green, but the production boards will still be red.

The primary updates are:

  • Updates to the LEDs
  • Updates to the voltage regulator output capacitors

Keep reading for more about the updated Bus Pirate design. You can buy a Bus Pirate v3b for $30, including worldwide shipping. The latest batch should ship in a week or two.

Continue reading “Prototype: Bus Pirate v3b”

Bus Pirate ‘new terminal’ test release

Sjaak is working on a branch of the Bus Pirate firmware known as ‘newterm‘ because it contains a new terminal interface.  It’s ready for an alpha release (download here), and we’d like to invite curious testers to take the new firmware for a spin. Newterm is only compatible with the v4 bootloader using pirate-loader or ds30 Loader, so upgrade first if you’re still using p24qp and the v2 bootloader.

Newterm has a bunch of new stuff:

  • Updated and revised command line
  • Accepts strings of commands at once (configure a mode in one line)
  • Menu and syntax are merged, removed sub-menus for pull-ups
  • Command history recall
  • BASIC script engine
  • ASCII data can be sent to directly to a bus using “quotes”
  • Full voltage reports and pin state information
  • Updated help

There’s some documentation in the forum, and demo posts for new features will follow. Newterm will become the official Bus Pirate firmware branch after extensive user testing. What are your thoughts on incrementing to v5 to commemorate the changeover? Share your experience with the newterm demo in the newterm thread.

More screenshots below.

Continue reading “Bus Pirate ‘new terminal’ test release”

Logic Sniffer probe cable update

Seeed Studio now has $6 Logic Sniffer probe cables available for back order. Each cable is a 1×9 connector with nine tweezer-style connectors. Don’t forget that you need two cables to connect to all 16 buffered channels on the OLS.

The Logic Sniffer is now on back order too, the next batch will ship in 15-20 days. Pick one up at Seeed for $45, including worldwide shipping.

Logic Sniffer quick start video

Openbench Logic Sniffer is an open source logic analyzer. It’s designed to support the SUMP logic analyzer software at the lowest possible cost. This project is a collaboration between the Gadget Factory and Dangerous Prototypes.

Logic Sniffers are starting to arrive worldwide, and the Gadget Factory has a quick start video to get you going right away.

There are a few OLS units left from the first batch. You can pick one up at Seeed for $45, including worldwide shipping. New orders should ship in the next few days.

Bus Pirate PIC24F programmer

This post is an overview of a test app that uses the Bus Pirate’s binary rawwire mode to program another Bus Pirate. This could be a handy way to unbrick one Bus Pirate with another. Eventually, we’d like it to program all PICs that don’t require a 13volt programming voltage (18FJ/FK, 24F, 30F, and 33F).

We’re having some problems getting it working though, and we put up one of Ril3y’s laser-cut Bus Pirate cases as a bounty for help solving the problem.

Download the current executable and source archive here, the latest source is in the SVN. Keep reading for an overview of the programmer application.

Continue reading “Bus Pirate PIC24F programmer”