Title: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: schazamp on January 05, 2012, 02:49:21 pm
Post by: schazamp on January 05, 2012, 02:49:21 pm
I just received two ITead PCB orders, and I chose the "Open PCB" option, where for $0.10 each, they will make two other copies of your PCB for a pool of open PCBs, and then send you two other PCBs from the pool.
One of the boards appears to be the same TFT Digital Picture Frame board that arhi received: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3369 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3369)
Most of the boards naturally (indeed, like my own) bump up against the 5x5 or 5x10 size limit of the service
[attachment=2]
The first one appears to be a CAT4101 Triple Driver, from here: http://code.google.com/p/hpled/wiki/PageName?tm=6 (http://code.google.com/p/hpled/wiki/PageName?tm=6)
The board is quite old (March, 2010), but there don't appear to be any new revisions on the site.
[attachment=1]
The second one appears to be some kind of LCD driver. I haven't been able to find anything out about it, and am waiting for a response from the email I sent.
[attachment=0]
The third one is produced by bitlair.nl, and appears to be some kind of RGB driver: https://bitlair.nl/archives/200 (https://bitlair.nl/archives/200). It uses 3 LM317s, one per channel, and it has some kind of MCU (I'm guessing AVR, like an ATmega8/168/328, from the pinout). It has lots of interesting art on the PCB, which is nice. But I haven't found any writeup on the board, just waiting for a response to my inquiry.
I participated in the Open PCB program for the chance (however minuscule) to get something useful or interesting, but I don't think I have any immediate use for any of these boards, and may be willing to offer to post them to anyone who thinks they can use them (or put them in the free PCB drawer, Ian?).
I will post about the boards I ordered once I have a chance to test them out.
One of the boards appears to be the same TFT Digital Picture Frame board that arhi received: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3369 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3369)
Most of the boards naturally (indeed, like my own) bump up against the 5x5 or 5x10 size limit of the service
[attachment=2]
The first one appears to be a CAT4101 Triple Driver, from here: http://code.google.com/p/hpled/wiki/PageName?tm=6 (http://code.google.com/p/hpled/wiki/PageName?tm=6)
The board is quite old (March, 2010), but there don't appear to be any new revisions on the site.
[attachment=1]
The second one appears to be some kind of LCD driver. I haven't been able to find anything out about it, and am waiting for a response from the email I sent.
[attachment=0]
The third one is produced by bitlair.nl, and appears to be some kind of RGB driver: https://bitlair.nl/archives/200 (https://bitlair.nl/archives/200). It uses 3 LM317s, one per channel, and it has some kind of MCU (I'm guessing AVR, like an ATmega8/168/328, from the pinout). It has lots of interesting art on the PCB, which is nice. But I haven't found any writeup on the board, just waiting for a response to my inquiry.
I participated in the Open PCB program for the chance (however minuscule) to get something useful or interesting, but I don't think I have any immediate use for any of these boards, and may be willing to offer to post them to anyone who thinks they can use them (or put them in the free PCB drawer, Ian?).
I will post about the boards I ordered once I have a chance to test them out.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: Sjaak on January 05, 2012, 02:57:29 pm
Post by: Sjaak on January 05, 2012, 02:57:29 pm
I like the 'mind the gap' and 'if you can read this you forgot the heatsink' silk of the last board!
Curious about the reactions of the boardmakers.
Curious about the reactions of the boardmakers.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: Rubu on January 05, 2012, 03:31:34 pm
Post by: Rubu on January 05, 2012, 03:31:34 pm
The creator of the bitlair ones posted on a forum I frequent about those PCBs, it is indeed a LED controller. I'm sure you'll get his contact details from bitlair admin or something, but if not let me know and I can pull his e-mail from his profile or PM or something.
So did you document the PCB's you opened up or is someone else scratching his head about pondering about your board as we speak? ;)
So did you document the PCB's you opened up or is someone else scratching his head about pondering about your board as we speak? ;)
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: ian on January 05, 2012, 05:26:29 pm
Post by: ian on January 05, 2012, 05:26:29 pm
Quote
I like the 'mind the gap' and 'if you can read this you forgot the heatsink' silk of the last board!
Me too!
If you don't use them, please, I'd love to toss them in the PCB drawer - it's nice to think someone can give them a good home (and we need drawer fodder, we mail up to 100 pcbs a month now, wow!).
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: schazamp on January 05, 2012, 05:37:53 pm
Post by: schazamp on January 05, 2012, 05:37:53 pm
[quote author="Rubu"]
So did you document the PCB's you opened up or is someone else scratching his head about pondering about your board as we speak? ;)[/quote]
My name's on it, and it is unique enough to be googlable, but my board is just a prototype, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on writeups until I can try it out and see whether it works.
[quote author="ian"]
If you don't use them, please, I'd love to toss them in the PCB drawer - it's nice to think someone can give them a good home (and we need drawer fodder, we mail up to 100 pcbs a month now, wow!).[/quote]
Alright, consider them in (all 4). I've had a great time going through all my free PCBs, and am happy to give back. How do you want to do it? Shall I mail it out from my place when someone orders it? Or do you want me to send them all somewhere else, for distribution?
[edit:] Though I don't have a stamp or many spare DP cards (since I use them for bookmarks, and usually lose them).
So did you document the PCB's you opened up or is someone else scratching his head about pondering about your board as we speak? ;)[/quote]
My name's on it, and it is unique enough to be googlable, but my board is just a prototype, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on writeups until I can try it out and see whether it works.
[quote author="ian"]
If you don't use them, please, I'd love to toss them in the PCB drawer - it's nice to think someone can give them a good home (and we need drawer fodder, we mail up to 100 pcbs a month now, wow!).[/quote]
Alright, consider them in (all 4). I've had a great time going through all my free PCBs, and am happy to give back. How do you want to do it? Shall I mail it out from my place when someone orders it? Or do you want me to send them all somewhere else, for distribution?
[edit:] Though I don't have a stamp or many spare DP cards (since I use them for bookmarks, and usually lose them).
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: ian on January 06, 2012, 08:44:06 am
Post by: ian on January 06, 2012, 08:44:06 am
Thanks, I'll PM :)
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: schazamp on January 06, 2012, 02:21:03 pm
Post by: schazamp on January 06, 2012, 02:21:03 pm
[edit]D'oh! Got the writeups mixed up. This should be correct: [/edit]
Frank Sandqvist, aka kankki, gave this reply about his board:
Here are the images he sent:
[attachment=0]
[attachment=2]
[attachment=1]
Frank Sandqvist, aka kankki, gave this reply about his board:
Quote
This is actually a board for a school project I'm doing. I'll attach the schematic, and also some bad cellphone pictures of it in action.
It's basically a current monitor based off an AtMEGA328, which I am programming using the Arduino bootloader. Really quite simple stuff :) It'll show the battery voltage, and current consumption on a 16x2 lcd. And from that, I can calculate the power, too.
The current measuring is done by a 100A "HASS 100-S" current transducer. The analog signal processing is done by the Microchip Op-amp. The voltage measuring is done by a simple voltage divider on the supply rail. Would have been better with 4-wire measuring, but I was lazy, and the voltage drop across the wires is minimal :)
The three gray boxes are just basic 10-turn trimmers mounted in a panel-mounting kit, which just makes them easy to mount in a box later. The Arduino UNO hanging off it is temporary off-course, just there to program the other board. Everything will be controlled through a simple menu system that can be navigated with a rotary encoder /w built in switch.
It's gonna sit in a SAAB 900 when it's done, hence the heavy filtering, varistor on the input.
Cheers,
Frank Sandqvist
Finland
Here are the images he sent:
[attachment=0]
[attachment=2]
[attachment=1]
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: schazamp on January 06, 2012, 02:28:11 pm
Post by: schazamp on January 06, 2012, 02:28:11 pm
Bob van Loosen, gave this info about the bitlair.nl board:
Here's the schematic he sent:
Quote
Hi,
I have attached the schematic.
It's a controller for driving two 3 watt RGB leds in series, you need 6 pin RGB leds for this, you can also use it to drive a single common cathode led.
A custom arduino bootloader has to be written into the atmega8, you can find the code at https://github.com/bitlair/bitlicht (https://github.com/bitlair/bitlicht)
The bootloader is based on http://todbot.com/blog/2009/05/26/minim ... h-atmega8/ (http://todbot.com/blog/2009/05/26/minimal-arduino-with-atmega8/)
You don't have to place an xtal on the pcb, it was put in the schematic just in case and because there was space for it on the pcb.
For flashing the atmega8 from the arduino IDE, you can connect an ftdi cable to the pin header, it's the same cable as used for the arduino pro mini,
just be sure to disconnect the power supply before doing that, otherwise you connect the 78L05 output to +5v on usb.
It's also possible to use an atmega328 on this pcb, since the pinout is compatible.
There was one small problem with the circuit, the lm317 regulators were oscillating at about 7,5 MHz, to solve this a 10nF capacitor needs to be placed across the 100 ohm resistors (R8, R10, R11).
I might also modify the bootloader to jump directly into the application if one of the pins is shorted to gnd, I was thinking of using one of the xtal pins for it, because then I can just solder a header in place of one of the xtal caps.
The problem is that the arduino bootloader never starts the application if you keep sending data to it, and this pcb is meant to be used with boblight http://code.google.com/p/boblight/ (http://code.google.com/p/boblight/) (my personal project).
Since there's no way for boblight to know when the bootloader or the application is running, you might end up in a situation where you have to stop boblight and wait for the bootloader to run the application.
I hope you or someone else has a use for this board :)
Regards,
Bob van Loosen.
Here's the schematic he sent:
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: tayken on January 08, 2012, 09:19:37 am
Post by: tayken on January 08, 2012, 09:19:37 am
Today I received a package from iTead, had a couple of things to order and wanted to give the PCB thing a shot. Here are the PCBs I have.
[attachment=0]
The one on the left is an Arduino Nano v3.0, I'm not sure where to get all the parts. The one on the middle is some sort of LED driver, couldn't find any info (but it is interesting as it has the center pad via thing that was being discussed a few days ago). And the one on the right is a breakout board that I ordered for the bluetooth modules they carry, had one from Sure Electronics, they have the same footprint but it has a reset pin that needs to be pulled high whereas the ones from iTead don't have it. Maybe sth related to firmware, I'll try to mess with the one from Sure once I get my hands on one of the old PCs at the hackerspace.
[attachment=0]
The one on the left is an Arduino Nano v3.0, I'm not sure where to get all the parts. The one on the middle is some sort of LED driver, couldn't find any info (but it is interesting as it has the center pad via thing that was being discussed a few days ago). And the one on the right is a breakout board that I ordered for the bluetooth modules they carry, had one from Sure Electronics, they have the same footprint but it has a reset pin that needs to be pulled high whereas the ones from iTead don't have it. Maybe sth related to firmware, I'll try to mess with the one from Sure once I get my hands on one of the old PCs at the hackerspace.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: schazamp on January 11, 2012, 03:23:18 am
Post by: schazamp on January 11, 2012, 03:23:18 am
I like that breakout. I ordered two of the bluetooth things. Do you have any spares you'd be willing to part with? I am working on a writeup of my other board, if you like, I'd be happy to arrange a trade, or to send $.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: tayken on January 11, 2012, 07:42:45 am
Post by: tayken on January 11, 2012, 07:42:45 am
[quote author="schazamp"]I like that breakout. I ordered two of the bluetooth things. Do you have any spares you'd be willing to part with? I am working on a writeup of my other board, if you like, I'd be happy to arrange a trade, or to send $.[/quote]
I'll be happy to send you some boards, no $ needed. I have about 7 left (I used 3), the rest can go to PCB drawer if Ian is OK with the idea.
One word of warning: The boards are not breadboard compatible as far as I know. They are a bit wide because of the routing, so I didn't even try spacing the connectors. If you're OK, PM me your address.
I'll be happy to send you some boards, no $ needed. I have about 7 left (I used 3), the rest can go to PCB drawer if Ian is OK with the idea.
One word of warning: The boards are not breadboard compatible as far as I know. They are a bit wide because of the routing, so I didn't even try spacing the connectors. If you're OK, PM me your address.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: drug123 on January 13, 2012, 04:08:04 pm
Post by: drug123 on January 13, 2012, 04:08:04 pm
[quote author="tayken"][/quote], [quote author="schazamp"][/quote]
I have investigated these modules recently and found few useful things you guys both may be interested in:
http://byron76.blogspot.com/ (http://byron76.blogspot.com/) - blog dedicated to these module's hacks
http://www.dealextreme.com/customerphot ... f41cf8.jpg (http://www.dealextreme.com/customerphotos/quarantined/201108/80711-62c3fc11-39cf-4998-9b9e-334fecf41cf8.jpg) - convenient pin description
Hope it will be helpful.
I have investigated these modules recently and found few useful things you guys both may be interested in:
http://byron76.blogspot.com/ (http://byron76.blogspot.com/) - blog dedicated to these module's hacks
http://www.dealextreme.com/customerphot ... f41cf8.jpg (http://www.dealextreme.com/customerphotos/quarantined/201108/80711-62c3fc11-39cf-4998-9b9e-334fecf41cf8.jpg) - convenient pin description
Hope it will be helpful.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: schazamp on January 13, 2012, 04:32:36 pm
Post by: schazamp on January 13, 2012, 04:32:36 pm
Wow, that looks very helpful, thank you!
Title: Few more ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: arupbsk on January 30, 2012, 04:51:20 pm
Post by: arupbsk on January 30, 2012, 04:51:20 pm
Today I received my fist itead order with two MYSTERY PCBs.
EDIT: First one is a cute breadboard type PCB designed by Zachary Heilig. Board looks like Perma-Proto
[attachment=1]
The second one is a bit mysterious.
It has a place for a QFP24 part and broken out pins labeled 3.3V-SDA-SCL-GND which indicates it's a I2C board.
There are two resistor pullups to the SDA,SCL lines whose values can be easily guessed.
There are 4 caps from 4 pins to GND which maybe 0.1uF caps.
I guess it's some Accelerometer breakout board.
Can anyone guess what's the IC? There's no name or any contact info on the board.[attachment=0]
EDIT: First one is a cute breadboard type PCB designed by Zachary Heilig. Board looks like Perma-Proto
[attachment=1]
The second one is a bit mysterious.
It has a place for a QFP24 part and broken out pins labeled 3.3V-SDA-SCL-GND which indicates it's a I2C board.
There are two resistor pullups to the SDA,SCL lines whose values can be easily guessed.
There are 4 caps from 4 pins to GND which maybe 0.1uF caps.
I guess it's some Accelerometer breakout board.
Can anyone guess what's the IC? There's no name or any contact info on the board.[attachment=0]
Title: Re: Few more ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: nabilt on January 30, 2012, 07:44:32 pm
Post by: nabilt on January 30, 2012, 07:44:32 pm
[quote author="arupbsk"]Today I received my fist itead order with two MYSTERY PCBs.
EDIT: First one is a cute breadboard type PCB designed by Zachary Heilig. Board looks like Perma-Proto
[attachment=1][/quote]
Hehe. I received the same board. I also got something called the Smart Modular Platform http://http://bigdinotech.com/smp/. I emailed the guy, but didn't get a response. It is looks like a power distribution board controlled by an atmega328 and some relays.
EDIT: First one is a cute breadboard type PCB designed by Zachary Heilig. Board looks like Perma-Proto
[attachment=1][/quote]
Hehe. I received the same board. I also got something called the Smart Modular Platform http://http://bigdinotech.com/smp/. I emailed the guy, but didn't get a response. It is looks like a power distribution board controlled by an atmega328 and some relays.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: Zach on January 31, 2012, 04:45:45 am
Post by: Zach on January 31, 2012, 04:45:45 am
It's interesting seeing where that little board ended up. I know where 3 went -- The 2 posters above and someone else that e-mailed me. ("we'll make 2 extra and send them to others"). ITead sent me an Arduino Nano bare board and a Foca V2.1 Breakout (both are for sale on their site). After using a couple of the boards, it seems obvious having fewer connected holes would be better (so I ordered some more with extra breaks).. It'll be interesting to see where they end up as well.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: madworm on February 17, 2012, 01:16:46 pm
Post by: madworm on February 17, 2012, 01:16:46 pm
In my last order I got yet another 'Foca V2.1'... and this black thing. Whatever it is. I wish there was a way to find out where my boards went.
(http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/madworm_de/sets/72157628937675281/with/6890573891/)
Maybe we should start a Flickr group for this as well ;-)
Done:
(http://http://www.flickr.com/groups/iteadstudio_mystery_pcb/)
(http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/madworm_de/sets/72157628937675281/with/6890573891/)Maybe we should start a Flickr group for this as well ;-)
Done:
(http://http://www.flickr.com/groups/iteadstudio_mystery_pcb/)
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: BrentBXR on February 18, 2012, 02:35:55 am
Post by: BrentBXR on February 18, 2012, 02:35:55 am
Man that VRES looks like a SUPER SIMPLE breakout board; for whatever fits the footprint in the middle... hmm so a shouded header and a simple header; then in the middle some kind of mounted somthing :D thats interesting.... does anyone recognize that footprint? ?D?
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: arupbsk on February 18, 2012, 02:59:03 am
Post by: arupbsk on February 18, 2012, 02:59:03 am
Oh Brent, you didnt recognize it?
VRES stands for variable resistance. See that the middle layout has + at a side and - at other side and S in middle. Also the pcb has two holes for mounting the potentiometer.
VRES stands for variable resistance. See that the middle layout has + at a side and - at other side and S in middle. Also the pcb has two holes for mounting the potentiometer.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: megabug on February 22, 2012, 11:44:52 am
Post by: megabug on February 22, 2012, 11:44:52 am
Today I got 2 mystery PCBs, too.
The one is labeled "EasyDriver" and the other one is just a little board with 3 pinheaders that are connected. ;)
[attachment=1]
[attachment=0]
The one is labeled "EasyDriver" and the other one is just a little board with 3 pinheaders that are connected. ;)
[attachment=1]
[attachment=0]
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: arupbsk on February 22, 2012, 12:26:38 pm
Post by: arupbsk on February 22, 2012, 12:26:38 pm
Looks like the black one is for PIR= Passive Infrared Sensor module.
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: arhi on February 22, 2012, 03:38:51 pm
Post by: arhi on February 22, 2012, 03:38:51 pm
red board is easy stepper driver: http://www.schmalzhaus.com/EasyDriver/ (http://www.schmalzhaus.com/EasyDriver/)
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: megabug on February 22, 2012, 05:04:20 pm
Post by: megabug on February 22, 2012, 05:04:20 pm
[quote author="arhi"]red board is easy stepper driver: http://www.schmalzhaus.com/EasyDriver/ (http://www.schmalzhaus.com/EasyDriver/)[/quote]
Oh nice, thanks for the info!
Oh nice, thanks for the info!
Title: Re: More ITead Mystery PCBs
Post by: Thorontir on March 21, 2013, 12:31:47 pm
Post by: Thorontir on March 21, 2013, 12:31:47 pm
Hey guys!
I have recently made a board with ITead, and received 2 open source boards. One of them seams clear to me, but the other one I only have a general idea.
Here are the boards:
[attachment=4][attachment=3]
Second board
[attachment=2][attachment=1]
I will post info about my own board as soon as I assemble one and test it. By the way, it's a test board for cheap nokia displays (I wanted to try since I readed viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3486 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3486) ) and also a FTDI chip connected to a PIC18. Can be used just to bring display pins to a header, with the pic as "standalone" and with the usb (routed from FTDI to the PIC, but with pins availabe for use without the PIC... I don't know if I am being clear enough).
As I said, I will post info, but here are pictures of it too...
[attachment=0]
I have recently made a board with ITead, and received 2 open source boards. One of them seams clear to me, but the other one I only have a general idea.
Here are the boards:
[attachment=4][attachment=3]
Second board
[attachment=2][attachment=1]
I will post info about my own board as soon as I assemble one and test it. By the way, it's a test board for cheap nokia displays (I wanted to try since I readed viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3486 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3486) ) and also a FTDI chip connected to a PIC18. Can be used just to bring display pins to a header, with the pic as "standalone" and with the usb (routed from FTDI to the PIC, but with pins availabe for use without the PIC... I don't know if I am being clear enough).
As I said, I will post info, but here are pictures of it too...
[attachment=0]