Over the years I profited enormously from the knowledge of this community. Time to give back a little.
I ordered three Buspirate V4 pcbs from Oshpark and since I don't need them all I would give away one for free. I you are interested send me a p.m. The first one who mails me will receive a pcb.
I already built one and it works great. Please bear in mind that this is a smd circuit and not easy to build.
I ordered 3 Bus Pirate Demo boards from Osh Park, thank you DP for making all the Eagle files downloadable!
After I built the boards, I wanted to test the I2C mode. I plan to use the board and Bus Pirate as a teaching tool to show students how the I2C protocol works.
Unfortunately the board did not work. After two days and willing to give up on it, I studied the source code and found the error inside the hardware.h file.
I2C mode should be entered with no jumpers set. But when you look at the code the board enters spi mode,... So either the code or the silkscreen is wrong.
After changing the code to #define MODEI2C 0x03 //0b11 #define MODESPI 0x02 //0b10 #define MODEUART 0x01 //0b01 #define MODEUNK 0x00 //0b00 The problem was fixed, the board and the silkscreen match now.
That was a hard to catch error, because I was sure the board was tested and such a trivial error would have been caught sooner. I also must confess I had no experience using Pic chips, I mostly use Msp430 controllers as teaching tool.
Nevertheless, all is well that ends well. And it also was an interesting experience to work with a new uc. I do not like the ide very much though,most annoying a double click should select a text instead of setting a break point.
Since I do not need all three pcbs I would give away one for free, just send me a p.m. if interested.
I received this board from Ian in 2011 but could not compleate the build because I could not get my hands on 27 Mhz crystal. Later I found one but could not find the board anymore,... Today I searched for it and found it again. I compleated the build and tried it out but unfortunately a japanese charset was loaded in the memory. I then found a sketch and downloaded a "normal ascii code" and finally got the board working. http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/12416978@N06/9393592176/
Built a superprobe,based on a pcb I kindly received from Ian. The pcb was pretty easy to populate, except the resistor arrays. Because you get these 0402 arrays only when you buy 50 or more and they are pretty much expensive I simply solderd single 0402 resistors. They a relatively small but it was doable.
All the passive components were unsoldered from junkyard pcbs. An my last junkyard visit I have not found suitable buttons, but I found a Ti Voyager calculator in working condition.So I was very happy though I did not find the items I was looking for. :)
I would like to build a frequency counter and use a Cpld for the divide by 10 logic. Are 36 macro cells enough for that purposive ? A dived by 10 and 100 logic would be even better. Unfortunately I am an absolute beginner and have no idea how much logic 36 macro cells could cover.
This really was a demanding project. I already populated the Usb part of the circuit and wanted to test it, but unfortunately there was a short between ground and the 3V3 rail. I suspected it was a bad solder joint and searched for it with a microscope, but I could not find it. In the end I had no choice but to remove all already components. It was an act of desperation. Sometimes you introduce a short, you can't see because the solder crept under the component. Everything removed and inspected, guess what, the short was still there,...
When I flipped the pcb, it struck me like lightning, there were etching errors on it.
