PCBs sent this week

We sent a bunch of PCBs to Seeed Studio’s Fusion service this week. The open source logic analyzer prototype was the most anticipated board, you can get the final hardware for free if you suggest the name.

The final design candidates for the PIC high voltage programming adapter went to the board house too. Looking at the circuit board, can you tell why we chose an MC34063A boost regulator instead of the microcontroller driven switched-mode power supply in our earlier tests?

More PCB preview goodness below.

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Name the open source logic analyzer, get one free

We’ve been working on an open source logic analyzer prototype with Jack Gassett of the Gadget Factory. Gerbers will go to the board house before the end of this week.

Until now we’ve called this project by the codename ‘SUMP PUMP’, because it’s a data pump for the open source SUMP logic analyzer client. This name is far to clever though, because SUMP infringes on the name of the original project, and it won’t index well in search engines.

We’d like to hear your suggestions for a name for this project. If we choose your name, we’ll send you the final hardware for free. Post your suggestions here, or in the forum.

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SparkFun's Bus Pirate

Months ago SparkFun mentioned that they were working on something similar to the Bus Pirate. We asked them to please consider using the Bus Pirate design because it already has a bunch of features, and it’s in the public domain.

Today we received a prototype of the SparkFun Bus Pirate. SparkFun is the fourth company to sell Bus Pirate hardware, a group that already includes an eBay seller, Fundamental Logic, and Seeed Studio.You might call this the Arduino-fication of the Bus Pirate.

It’s awesome that the Bus Pirate is becoming a popular, widely available prototyping tool. Hopefully SparkFun’s exposure gives a lot more people the chance to use one. Of course, we’d prefer you buy a Bus Pirate at Seeed Studio because each sale directly funds the development of this open source project.

We give our impressions of the SparkFun hardware after the break.

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@tweet_tree live USTREAM

Live video of @tweet_tree on USTREAM (sorry, WordPress wouldn’t let us embed it). Send colors or color codes to @tweet_tree on Twitter, watch the tree change. The broadcast has ended, thanks to everyone who gave us a light show with Twitter!

@tweet_tree understands color names (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) and custom 24bit color codes (*ff0000=red, *00ff00=green, *0000ff=blue). You can send multiple colors in the same tweet, but they’ll be played backwards from last to first. New tweets are grabbed every 60 seconds.

@tweet_tree is a stand-alone network appliance based on our open source, business card size web platform. The web platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio can assemble yours for $5 more.

Free PCB Sunday: Web platform

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 free PCBs for our powerful new embedded web platform. The Web Platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio can assemble yours for $5 more.

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Annotated Bus Pirate photo

Gerard Braad made a fully annotated photo of the Bus Pirate on Flickr. Each pin, chip, and passive component is described in photo notes as you move your mouse over the image.

Bus Pirate v3 is available for immediate delivery from Seeed Studio for $30, including worldwide shipping. Each Bus Pirate purchased at Seeed Studio directly supports the development of this open source project.

Fantastic work, thanks for the tip!

Bus Pirate firmware v3.1

Version 3.1 of the Bus Pirate firmware is now on the project Google Code page. This release includes a few bug fixes, and updates to the Spanish and Italian translations. The biggest bug fix corrects a problem with frozen hardware when using the live UART monitor.

The main Bus Pirate firmware now occupies almost all the space in the PIC24FJ64GA002. Future development will need to be accompanied by diligent code cleanup, or more optional firmwares like the AVR STK500v2 programmer clone. A major first step would be to improve the terminal messaging system.

Bus Pirate v3 is now available for immediate delivery from Seeed Studio for $30, including worldwide shipping. Each Bus Pirate purchased at Seeed Studio directly supports the development of this open source project. Seeed also has probe cables ($4.90) and a case ($2.50) for the Bus Pirate.

Web platform: Twitter controlled Christmas tree

UPDATE: Live video of @tweet_tree on USTREAM (sorry, WordPress wouldn’t let us embed it). The broadcast has ended, thanks to everyone who gave us a light show with Twitter!

Choose the color of our Christmas tree. @tweet_tree is a Christmas tree that everyone can control from Twitter. Just tweet a color to @tweet_tree.

A small embedded server reads your tweets, and fades our fiber optic tree to the colors you send. New tweets are grabbed every few seconds.

@tweet_tree is a stand-alone network appliance based on our open source, business card size web platform. The web platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio can assemble yours for $5 more.

Overview


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Open source logic analyzer update

A few months ago we started working with the Gadget Factory to build an open source logic analyzer. After a very successful collaboration, we’re almost ready to order the first PCBs. Click here for a large PCB image [PNG].

The draft device has 16 buffered (5volt tolerant) input channels, and 16 unbuffered I/O channels on a wing header.  The PC connection is USB 2.0 with a PIC18F24J50 microcontroller. Both the PIC and the FPGA firmware will be USB upgradable.

You can follow our most recent progress in the forum. Uwe’s block diagram of the final design follows.

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Arduino logic analyzer

Merve is working on an Arduino-driven logic analyzer design in the Arduino Forum. It uses logic chips to drive SRAM memory during acquisition, the Arduino then dumps samples from the SRAM via a shift register.

We’re really interested in the result of this design. We once attempted a logic chip-based analyzer, but the design got complicated at high speeds because of the need for 16bit+ synchronous counters to drive the SRAM. Instead, we moved to CPLDs to try and squeeze all the logic ICs into a single, reprogrammable chip.

Several readers submitted a link to this post, thanks for the tip!

Web platform: SD card web server demo

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

The goal of this demo is to serve files to a web browser from a microSD card using the web platform hardware. Microchip’s latest TCPIP stack demonstration includes an HTTP server that reads files from FAT formatted SD cards, so there’s no need to write our own. A compiled version, ported to the web platform, is included in the project archive that accompanies this article.

The Web Platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio will assemble yours for $5 more.

A demonstration of the SD card web server firmware follows the break.

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Free PCB Sunday II: Web platform

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 free PCBs for our powerful new embedded web platform. The Web Platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio will assemble yours for $5 more.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday II: Web platform”

Free PCB Sunday: Web platform

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 free PCBs for our powerful new embedded web platform. We’ll give away a few now, and more in a second post later today.

The Web Platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio will assemble yours for $5 more.

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Web platform”

Make's 2009 open source hardware guide

Dangerous Prototypes made it into Make’s open source hardware guide 2009! We got interested in open source hardware while reading Make and Hack a Day, this is a really special accomplishment for us.

Our hackable LED Christmas ornament is featured on the cover. The web platform, #twatch, and Bus Pirate are all listed in the development platforms and tools category. Thanks for the mention!

Prototype: Web platform

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

The Dangerous Prototypes web platform is a tiny server designed for networked hacks where a full PC is inconvenient. There’s lots of interesting projects that bridge the internet to microcontrollers, but most of them have a PC in the middle to handle network stuff. This business card size internet appliance can connect to web services, control physical objects from a browser interface, or email sensor status reports; no PC intermediary required!

This isn’t our first small server. Ian designed a popular web server on a business card featured at Hack a Day. The new web platform is also in the profile of a business card, but everything else is kicked up a notch. The microcontroller is a fast dsPIC33 (80MHz/40MIPS) with twice as much program space, DMA, and hardware math assistance. There’s also a simple USB connection for firmware updates and communication with a PC.

This article introduces the hardware. We demonstrate it with an small web server that controls I/O pins and accepts new web page uploads through a web browser.

The Web Platform is available as a kit for $35, including worldwide shipping. Seeed Studio will assemble yours for $5 more.

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Bus Pirate PIC programmer update

PIC 12/16/18/ds30 programming support for the Bus Pirate is progressing. Sean Nelson, a regular contributor to the Bus Pirate project, submitted a patch that adds serial port support to usbpicprog. The Linux patch compiles, but the Windows port still has some bugs.

The picture shows our prototype 13volt power supply for the PIC programmer. It’s a simple SMPS that can boost the input voltage to anything below 13volts. Our tests showed an unregulated output of over 120volts, but the final supply includes a feedback loop to set the output voltage level and a 13volt zener clamp to protect the PIC from damage.