Seeed Studio has the PIC 24FJ64GA002-SS chips for Bus Pirate v3 preorder 2. Orders should start shipping next week, from the 25th of November.
What do you plan to hack with your Bus Pirate?
Prototype: Hackable LED Christmas card & ornament
Holiday cards that blink and beep have always fascinated us. This is our hackable DIY version, made with an ATtiny13A and a few LEDs. Push the button to play a short light show in the tree. We’re sending these to friends and family this year. It’s a handmade, hackable gift, and it was a ton of fun to build.
The card is also an homage to Velleman’s blinking Christmas tree ornament kit, and a kit-biz reference to the Adafruit Promise. (Did you know Velleman has a nixie tube clock kit? Really!)
You can buy a copy of our card at Seeed Studio. Assembled cards are $15, and a kit for adventurous solderers is $12. We’re excited to gauge interest an SMD kit, and hope to offer it as an option for future projects.
Video, hardware, firmware, and more, after the break.
Continue reading “Prototype: Hackable LED Christmas card & ornament”
DIY Bus Pirate case
Free PCB Sunday: AVR holiday ornament
This week we’re giving away free PCBs for an upcoming project, an AVR ATtiny13A-based holiday ornament and card. Later this week it’ll be available at Seeed Studio assembled, and as a kit, both under $20 (shipped). The how-to article should be out on Tuesday or Thursday.
We received and tested these PCBs in the last 24hours. We were expecting regular green PCBs, but got black, which isn’t a very traditional Christmas color… Would you prefer red, green, black, or another color on the final kit?
There’s some urgency with this project – to deliver anywhere close to the Holidays we have to order a number of these up-front, instead of doing a preorder. That’s a bit daunting. If you have a suggestion for quantity, or would just like to buy one, please let us know so we can get a handle on how many to order.
Bus Pirate v3 case?
Eric at Seeed Studio sent a sample case that fits the Bus Pirate v3 PCB, we wanted to share it with you right away. We imagine they can have holes put in it for the USB & IO headers, and the LEDs.
What do you think? Is this a good accessory for the Bus Pirate?
You can get BPv3 at Seeed Studio for $30, including worldwide shipping.
Free PCB Sunday: AVR holiday ornament
This week we’re giving away free PCBs for an upcoming project, an AVR ATtiny13A-based holiday ornament and card. Later this week it’ll be available at Seeed Studio assembled, and as a kit, both under $20 (shipped). The how-to article should be out on Tuesday or Thursday.
We received and tested these PCBs in the last 24hours. We were expecting regular green PCBs, but got black, which isn’t a very traditional Christmas color… Would you prefer red, green, black, or another color on the final kit?
There’s some urgency with this project – to deliver anywhere close to the Holidays we have to order a number of these up-front, instead of doing a preorder. That’s a bit daunting. If you have a suggestion for quantity, or would just like to buy one, please let us know so we can get a handle on how many to order.
Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: AVR holiday ornament”
Personal Twitter timeline on the #twatch
twonk submitted an awesome Python script that pushes your personal Twitter timeline to the #twatch.
We’ve added a new folder with a few user-contributed scripts for the #twatch in Python, Perl, etc. If you come up with a script for the #twatch, please share it in the #twatch forum.
#twatch firmware with backlight enabled
The white-on-blue screen that shipped with the #twatch really requires the backlight to be visible. Here’s an updated firmware that has the backlight on at power-up. The new firmware is loaded over the network using tools already available in most operating systems, Windows instructions here.
We apologize for the lack of refinement. We prototyped with a cheap grey-on-green screen that didn’t normally require the backlight. The firmware posted to the Google Code project page went into the Seeed #twatches unmodified to ensure that yours matched the original. Everyone would probably have preferred that the #twatch ship with the backlight enabled by default.
In the next update we’ll tweak the refresh rate from 60 vs 120 hertz, as well as the scrolling speed. Do you have any other specific requests for the standard #twatch firmware?
Image by andrewholmes.
Bus Pirate 102
See the latest version on the documentation wiki.
By popular demand, here’s a second part to the original Bus Pirate 101 tutorial. This time we walk through the Bus Pirate user interface and demonstrate some basic stuff like bus modes, power supplies, pull-up resistors, and number entry. Even if you’ve worked with the Bus Pirate for a while, you might learn some new tricks in this detailed use tutorial written by the primary developer.
Unboxing photo by Uwe Bannow, thanks!
#twatch scripts folder
We’ve added a folder to the SVN with a few user-contributed scripts for the #twatch in Python, Perl, etc. If you come up with a script for the #twatch, please share it in the #twatch forum.
Bounty: Add Bus Pirate support to OpenOCD JTAG programmer
We’re offering a bounty on the most-requested Bus Pirate features. The developer of each feature can have their choice of a Bus Pirate probe cable kit or our next monthly project.
Today we’re highlighting JTAG. It would be ideal to have Bus Pirate support in the popular open source JTAG programmer OpenOCD, but other solutions are also fine. It should be possible to adapt an existing parallel port or FTDI232 JTAG wiggler mode to flip bits in a byte and send it to the Bus Pirate bitbang binary mode. We could also develop a separate binary JTAG library if requested.
A JTAG programmer that supports the Bus Pirate is currently the most-requested feature addition. Early firmwares had a terminal-based XSFV programmer from Xilinx, but it required specially compiled XSFV programming files and funky flow control.
Firmware v2.x removed the XSFV programmer, but added a new binary access mode that can be used with PC-based JTAG programmers. This is a much better solution because it lets the PC do any heavy lifting, the Bus Pirate simply twiddles pins.
Thanks to bluesign2k for the unboxing picture.
Bus Pirate v3 unboxing
Bus Pirate v3 preorder 1 is starting to be delivered worldwide. There’s a discussion in this thread of the forum.
Learn about connecting the Bus Pirate for the first time in the Bus Pirate 101 tutorial. BPv3 shipped with a special firmware (v2.4-Seeed) that includes a manufacturer’s self-test mode. It’s a good idea to upgrade to the latest firmware (Windows, OSX, Python). You might want to run a self-test to verify the hardware.
The Bus Pirate manual has lots of links to get you started. Familiarize yourself with the IO pins, menu options, and syntax, then take a look at the the chip demonstrations. There’s also additional help in the forum.
There’s still time to get a Bus Pirate v3 for $30 including worldwide shipping.
Thanks to pandriod for a picture of the BPv3 hardware with a red PCB.
SMD parts in a kit?
How comfortable are you with surface mount parts? Would you build a kit that included some or all surface mount components?
Seeed Studio will stock our next few projects as both a kit and assembled hardware.
Some kits will include all SMD parts in 0805, SSOP, and other small packages, like the Bus Pirate and #twatch. Others will use a mix of parts like the PCB shown above, it uses a large SIOC-sized surface mount IC and through-hole resistors.
Even if you don’t like the idea of an SMD kit, would you be willing to solder some larger SMD parts if the resistors and capacitors were a comfortable through-hole size?
Thanks for your feedback!
Creative #twatch holder
Another #twatch picture from Twitter user andrewholmes.
Bus Pirate v3 unboxing?
It sounds like Bus Pirate v3 preorder 1 is arriving now. If you received your BPv3, would you please post an unboxing picture and send us a link? We haven’t seen the new version yet and we’ll use the pic in an unboxing post.
Ping the #twatch
The #twatch has a simple ICMP (ping) server that shows if the #twatch is alive and kicking on your network, and how long it takes to respond.
First, get the #twatch IP address from the LCD screen or the announcement packet.
Next, start a ping client and ping the #twatch IP address. Windows has a built-in ping client that’s available from the command prompt (Start->run. Type ‘cmd’, press enter. Type ‘ping’, followed by the IP address).
The ping results show basic statistics like how many pings were successful, and how long the #twatch took to reply. If these response times appear unusually high or erratic, verify that your local network isn’t saturated. Background OS updates, interactive web platforms like sweepstakes casinos, and high-definition media streams on other connected devices can all introduce latency that skews the watch’s baseline network metrics.
Another #twatch unboxing
Twitter user andrewholmes posted a #twatch unboxing pic.
Centipede MCP23017 I2C IO expander
Macetech’s Centipede Shield adds 64 IO pins to an Arduino. It’s got four Microchip MCP23017 I2C IO expanders, with I2C speeds up to 1.7MHz. Macetech will give you one if you’ve got a project that promotes the new hardware.
Thanks for the tip, also via Hack a Day.
Bus Pirate firmware v3.0 released
Bus Pirate firmware v3.0 is available for download. This release has a new logic analyzer function, improvements to the SPI and I2C bus sniffers, and many bug fixes. See the commit log for a complete list of updates.
The download includes English, Spanish, and Italian language firmware for hardware v3, v2go, and v1a. We’ve stopped compiling firmware for v2a and v0a because nobody reported using them. If you want a compile for these versions, just ask.
There’s a list of major updates since the last release after the break.
Free PCB Sunday: #twatch v1b
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.
Earlier we gave away a v1a #twatch PCB, now we’re giving away one of two existing 24FJ64GA002-based v1b #twatch development board PCBs. We’d like this go to someone interested in developing firmware for their v2 #twatch, but that’s at your discretion. Sorry there’s no photo, this is a bare, green PCB. PCB by Seeed Studio.
Get an assembled red #twatch for $45 at Seeed Studio, including LCD and worldwide shipping. Seeed also has #twatch v2 PCBs for $6, and the compatible ethernet jack for $1.90.