Bus Pirate accessories

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Preview: Bus Pirate LCD adapter v2

July 29, 2010 in Bus Pirate, Bus Pirate accessories, Development by Ian | 2 comments

This is a new LCD adapter for the Bus Pirate. The board has been tested, Seeed is building a manufacturing prototype now. The Bus Pirate LCD library in firmware v5.4+ will require this LCD adapter instead of the old v1 adapter.

The v1 LCD adapter was based on a PCF8574 I2C IO expander IC. It took more than a second to update a 4×20 LCD screen, and the production price was too high to justify producing any.

The v2 adapter uses a cheap 74HCT595 8bit shift register instead. It has an SPI interface for blazing fast screen refreshes.

Read more about the v2 LCD adapter features and download the preliminary Eagle files in the forum.

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Bus Pirate case at Seeed Studio

December 14, 2009 in BP v3, Bus Pirate, Bus Pirate accessories, cases by Ian | 7 comments

Seeed Studio had cases made for the Bus Pirate v3, available immediately for $2.50.

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Bus Pirate probe cable, $7.75

October 13, 2009 in Bus Pirate, Bus Pirate accessories by Ian | 1 comment

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Seeed Studio is now listing a Bus Pirate compatible probe cable kit for $4.90. That’s about $7.75 including worldwide shipping. This cable has been a pretty popular item, we’re really glad Seeed is making them available for everyone.

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The cable is a kit that you solder yourself. It includes a 2×5 connector that mates with the Bus Pirate, rainbow ribbon cable, and 10 hook type probes.

You can still preorder an assembled Bus Pirate v3 with a red PCB for $30 at Seeed Studio, including worldwide shipping.

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Bus Pirate probe cable

October 9, 2009 in Bus Pirate, Bus Pirate accessories by Ian | 2 comments

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Seeed Studio may put together a Bus Pirate probe cable kit. We’re not involved in this sale, but we encouraged Seeed to offer it as an inexpensive accessory for the Bus Pirate. We get a lot of questions about this cable, this might be your chance to get one.

We suggested that Seeed use the round barrel clips, rather then the flat tweezers. The tweezers probes on this test cable didn’t last very long, though we really abuse our tools.

Don’t forget that it’s time to vote in Seeed’s Rainbowduino contest.

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Bus Pirate: HD44780 character LCD adapter

August 13, 2009 in Bus Pirate, Bus Pirate accessories, Prototypes by Ian | No comments

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Cheap character LCDs based on the HD44780 chipset come in a variety of sizes: 2×16, 4×20, etc. These displays have two standard interface modes, 4bit and 8bit parallel. 8bit requires a total of 11 data lines, 4bit requires 7 (6 for write-only). Some LCDs support an additional serial data mode, like the VFD Ian covered at Hack a Day.

adapter-mini.225HD44780 LCDs are generally 5volt parts with a separate supply for the back light. The Bus Pirate only has five 5volt tolerant I/O pins, so we made a small adapter board with enough pins to control the LCD. The Bus Pirate controls the adapter board through its LCD interface library.

Continue reading about the Bus Pirate HD44780 character LCD adapter board and interface library after the break. We can have PCBs, kits, or assembled kits produced by Seeed Studio for about $15, including worldwide shipping, more here. Read the rest of this entry »

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Prototype: Bus Pirate 3EEPROM explorer board

July 30, 2009 in Bus Pirate, Bus Pirate accessories, Prototypes by Ian | 5 comments

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

Now you’ve got one of Hack a Day’s Bus Pirates, what do you do with it? Learn about 1-wire, I2C, and SPI EEPROMs with the 3EEPROM explorer board (we pronounce it THREE-PROM, emphasis on the EE).

EEPROM is a type of memory chip that stores data without a continuous power supply. It’s useful for permanent data storage in small logger circuits, or holding custom pages in a mini web server. EEPROMs come in lots of sizes and protocols.

The 3EEPROM has three common EEPROM chips: the DS2431 (1-Wire), 24AA- (I2C), and 25AA- (SPI). All three were previously demonstrated on Hack a Day, but each demo uses a different version of the Bus Pirate hardware and firmware, its difficult for a beginner to follow using a Bus Pirate v2go.

Continue reading for an updated, step by step guide to using the DS2431, 24AA-, and 25AA- EEPROMs with the Bus Pirate v2go. We’ve also got the full session logs as text files so you won’t miss a single detail.

We can have 3EEPROM explorer board PCBs or kits produced at Seeed Studio. PCBs are about $10, kits are about $15, shipped worldwide. We need to organize a group purchase of 10 PCBs or 20 kits to get started. If you’re interested in a Bus Pirate, version 3 is coming.

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