Bus Pirate bootloader v4 console for Linux, Mac

It looks like some people are having problems with the ds30 Loader GUI for the Bus Pirate v4 bootloader on Linux or Mac with Mono, and many would prefer not to install Mono at all.

pppd cooked up a simple console application (updated version here) for the v4 bootloader in Linux and MacOSX (and Windows). Follow the link for instructions, source, and precompiled binaries.

If you test the console app, please let us know how it goes. After some testing we’ll package it with the normal firmware archive downloads.

[Tux image]

Bus Pirate firmware v4.1

Bus Pirate firmware v4.1 is now available for download. Firmware v4+ requires a bootloader upgrade. Firmware v4+ will not work with the original v2 bootloader. This release includes several new features:

  • Voltage readings to two decimal points of precision
  • Continuous ADC probe reading mode
  • Print bootloader version info
  • Enter bootloader without a jumper
  • First major release for v4 bootloader. Archive includes v4.2 bootloader.
  • Includes updated STK500v2 and OpenOCD firmwares for v4 bootloader.

Please update to the v4 bootloader prior using this release. New features are described below.

Continue reading “Bus Pirate firmware v4.1”

How-to: Bus Pirate bootloader v4 upgrade

See the latest version in the documentation wiki.

Bus Pirate firmware v4+ requires a bootloader upgrade. The upgrade frees space for more features, eliminates verify errors in the last page of memory, and fixes the bootloader speed limitation on some PICs. The new bootloader is available to everyone through an upgrader firmware that is loaded using the existing bootloader.

Thanks to the developers and testers who contributed to the bootloader update. You caught two major bugs prior to wider user trials. We’re now cautiously optimistic that the upgrade will go smoothly.

We’d like to invite most Bus Pirate v2go and v3 users to upgrade. If you’re in the middle of a project, don’t upgrade yet, wait and see how it goes. The upgrade has gone smoothly for twenty lots of users, and we tested the latest updater on every version of the Bus Pirate chip and hardware prior to release.

A v1a upgrade will follow if the v2go and v3 deployment goes smoothly. No further support is planned for v0a or v2a hardware. Upgrade instructions follow.

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Demo: Sure LED matrix

This is an old version, see the latest version on the documentation wiki.

You may have come across this 16×24 LED matrix board on eBay or at Sure Electronics. Each board has three 8×8 LED blocks and a controller to drive them. A simple three-wire serial interface toggles each LED and configures the overall brightness of the board. Up to four boards can be chained through 2×10 pin headers on the back, a connector cable was included with each board.

We used the Bus Pirate to test the board and learn its protocol before using it with the web platform (more on that later). Grab the datasheet and follow along below.

This is the first of a new weekly series that demonstrates devices with the Bus Pirate. Come back next Monday for another all new demo.

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Free PCB Sunday: USB RGB color changer

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 is a USB controlled RGB color changing light. Ian did this project at DIY Life, a Weblogs, Inc. site that shut down about a year ago. Someone made some minor modifications to the design and had a bunch of boards produced, we ended up with a pile of the extras. This PCB is as-of-yet untested, you can discuss it in the forum.

We’re giving away two PCBs this week, just ask for one in the comments.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: USB RGB color changer”

Additional bootloader/firmware v4 testers needed

Early testing of the new v4 bootloader uncovered a bug, but upgrades now appear to be going smoothly for everyone. We still need additional testers before it’s ready to deploy. If you have access to a PIC programmer, please consider testing the bootloader upgrade release candidate. We’ve had about 10 successful upgrades, it would be great to have twice that many before inviting other Bus Pirate users to upgrade.

If you have any feature requests for the v4 firmware, feel free to list them here.

Corrected Bus Pirate pinout?

We’d like your feedback on a major change to the Bus Pirate firmware. We’d like to restore the pin order to the more logical format found on the va and v1a hardware.

The original pin order for va and v1a hardware was MOSI/CLOCK/MISO/CS on single row of pin headers. Pin 1 (MOSI) is the most often used pin, required for all protocols. Pin 2 adds clock, pin 3 adds dedicated data input, and pin 4 adds chip select. See the protocol pinout table above.

The current pin order on v2go and v3 hardware, as seen on a ribbon cable, is MISO/CS/MOSI/CLOCK. This is a lot less intuitive. When we routed the v2go PCBs with a 2×5 pin header, we didn’t pay attention to the change in signal order until it was too late.

We’ve considered changing it several times, but a few things have stopped us. It will be a fairly involved undertaking to update the firmware and test all the protocols. But the primary reason is that existing Bus Pirate v2go and v3 pinouts won’t match the silk screen on the back.

What do you think? Is it worth the effort and ensuing confusion when the pinout changes?

Bus Pirate v3 preorder 2 broken LED fix

There have been multiple reports of dead MODE LEDs in Bus Pirate v3, preorder 2. The cause seems to be a dirty contact on the LED. Most can be repaired by reheating the joint, and possibly adding a bit more solder.

In response to this problem, Seeed Studio has changed LED suppliers. We also implemented a visual LED inspection step to the self-test in firmware v3.6 and later. If you have a dead LED and would like replacement parts, please contact us.

A note from Seeed follows.

Continue reading “Bus Pirate v3 preorder 2 broken LED fix”

Bus Pirate bootloader v4 upgrade release candidate

Update: Thanks to our testers we caught an early bug, a new update is now available for testing.

Last week we identified a shortcoming in the Bus Pirate bootloader. We’ve been working on an upgrade that will free space for more features, eliminate verify errors in the last page of memory, and fix the bootloader speed limitation on some PICs.

Three fantastic programmers contributed to the bootloader upgrade, going from bug identification to release candidate in about one week. Sjaak helped port the new bootloader to the Bus Pirate, and wrote an installer to make the upgrade process as safe as possible. Alexdresko made extensive updates to the bootloader GUI so we can release the firmware with pre-configured settings. Mikael Gustafsson, author of the ds30 Loader toolchain we’re using, added custom bootloader placement, error messages, and distribution configuration to the project for us.

We’re confident the bootloader upgrade will go smoothly, and don’t plan additional changes, so it’s time for a release candidate. We’d like to invite alpha testers with PIC programmers and Bus Pirate v2go or v3 to try the bootloader upgrade. Until we complete some initial testing, please do not upgrade unless you can restore the old bootloader with a PIC programmer. Upgrade instructions follow.

Continue reading “Bus Pirate bootloader v4 upgrade release candidate”

Interview with Seeed Studio on postal delays

Airmail packages from Seeed Studio have been extremely slow lately. We’re currently waiting on circuit boards and other goodies to arrive from Seeed Studio. Our order left Seeed promptly, but delivery is taking weeks. Lots of other people have experienced long shipping times too. We sent Seeed a list of questions to get a handle on the situation. The bottom line: Seeed expects delivery times to return to normal starting now.

Dangerous Prototypes: When we started ordering from Seeed, airmail shipped on Monday arrived in the US and EU on Thursday or Friday. Now it takes about 4 to 6 weeks. Did you notice a similar increase in time to all destinations?

Seeed: We had problems throughout last month, Christmas rush hour, vacation, bad weather… Some parcels are having ridiculous long shipping time. Thanks for sending us these questions, we sincerely appreciate the chance to explain. Good news is the shipping time is getting back to normal now.

DP: Is this a seasonal delay? If so, when might we expect faster delivery again?

Seeed: It’s not normal, the major reason for delaying is Hong Kong post faced an extreme overloading for holiday posts. All parcels have to queue to get processed, sorted, and finally board for destination. For about one week, all posts except USA and EU are even suspended just to save the majority delaying. Ebay sent several notices to its China sellers for this issue and suggested solutions, many of them just closed up to avoid reputation damage. We tried to contact our logistic company for this issue, but in vain. Additionally, vacations and bad weather in destination country aggravates the delay.

Interview continues below.

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Web Platform: Kits shipped, assembled boards next week

Seeed Studio just sent an update on the web platform. The kit version has been shipped, you should receive your tracking information shortly if you haven’t already. The assembled version will ship next week. Albert, Seeed’s lead engineer, is currently programming and testing the assembled boards. The good news is that airmail shipping times should return to normal, more on that in a second.

We apologize for the delay. We’re committed to reducing the preorder wait time as much as possible. We’ve begun coordinating with Seeed to add key parts to their monthly bill of materials so they’re ready when a preorder starts. We’ve also started designing  projects with parts availability in mind, instead of using whatever is in our parts box.

Thank you for tolerating the delays as we get the kinks worked out of this system. Most importantly, we don’t want to hold you hostage, please contact Seeed for a refund if you’d like to cancel your order.

Bus Pirate firmware v3.6 released

Bus Pirate firmware v3.6 is available for download, this is a minor bug fix release. Update using the normal firmware upgrade procedure. This release does not reach into the upper memory page, so there shouldn’t be any upgrade issues. Changes include:

  • Fixed version string. v3.5 displayed ‘Firmware 3.5’ instead of ‘Firmware v3.5’. This caused issues with Bus Pirate support in AVRdude.
  • Added pause with lit MODE and VREG LED to self-test.

Since release v3.1 the Bus Pirate v2go and v3 share the same firmware. Upgrade v2go with the firmware for v3.

Laser cut Bus Pirate v3 cases now available

Lots of us have been waiting for an update on Ril3y’s laser cut Bus Pirate case. Synthetos Laboratories (Ril3y’s store) now lists them in clear ($12.99), translucent red, and translucent black (both $14.99). Up to three cases can be shipped within the US for $5.95, international shipping is $13.95.

Good luck with this project Ril3y, we’re hug fans of this case. We’ll post more pictures and updates as soon as we get our hands on one.

Free PCB Sunday: Infrared receiver/transmitter

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 is a prototype PCB for an upcoming USB infrared receiver/transmitter project, it isn’t the final board. This version was used in our remote control Halloween pumpkin. It took several tries to get this board right, this is the very first. The PCB is too thin for a reliable connection with the on-board A-connector, but it also has a footprint for a standard USB B-connector.

We’re giving away two PCBs this week, just ask for one in the comments.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Infrared receiver/transmitter”

LPKF EasyContac rivets for vias

Charlie made his own Bus Pirate PCB and used LPKF EasyContac rivets (warning, page denies non-US IPs) to connect the front and back sides. He had to enlarge the vias to 31mils to fit the rivets, and suggests going even bigger if possible. There’s more discussion on Charlie’s blog and at CNC Zone.

The LPKF ProtoMat PCB mill is also worth a look (this page accepts all visitors). That would be great in our lab!

Via the forum.

rvbcrs' web platform build

rvbcrs, a regular poster in the forum, received a preview web platform PCB. This is his build running the @tweet_tree firmware with a ShiftBrite LED. Here’s a list of all the web platform demos so far.

The web platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio will assemble yours for $5 more. Orders should begin shipping in a few days.

Bus Pirate support in Windows Flashrom port

Flashrom is an open source utility for working with flash storage chips. It supports a bunch of flash chips commonly used on motherboards to hold the system BIOS. biosflasher (Carl-Daniel Hailfinger) recently added Bus Pirate support to Flashrom.

Now pgeorgi has released a Windows port of Flashrom with Bus Pirate support, and biosflasher committed the patches back to the Flashrom repository. Check out the usage examples in the forum.

Great work, thanks for making the Bus Pirate the best supported universal serial interface around!

Open source digital sampling oscilloscope

Please join us in the forum to discuss a digital sampling oscilloscope add-on for the open source logic analyzer (currently referred to as project SUMP PUMP). Our general goal is to design an inexpensive expansion board that samples analog voltages at 50MHz+.

The combination of a logic analyzer and sampling oscilloscope is a powerful debugging tool. The logic analyzer displays changes in signal states, the oscilloscope reveals how clean the transitions are.

We’re in the process of choosing a parallel ADC chip and discussing analog front-end designs. Feel free to make requests, suggestions, or just follow along.