Bus Pirate preorder 2 update

posted Jul 23rd 2009 3:00pm by
filed under: news, tool hacks

bp-unbox-0

A few weeks ago we held a preorder for the Bus Pirate universal serial interface tool. We split the preorder into two parts due to a shortage of PIC 24FJ64GA002-I/SO chips. The first preorder is arriving worldwide now, the second preorder has a longer lead time. Here’s everything we currently know about preorder 2, it’s subject to change, but we wanted to keep you up to date.

Preorder 2 contains orders for 563 Bus Pirates. Seeed Studio noticed an error in our quality control testing routine that misclassified about 50 preorder 1 Bus Pirates as defective. We updated the test and passing units will ship immediately to preorder 2 participants on a first come, first serve basis. Another 500 PICs are scheduled to arrive after August 1, which should take care of most remaining orders.

A special thanks to the fantastic engineers at Microchip who took the time to peruse the Bus Pirate code, and immediately gave the correct solution to our quality control problem. Great job Microchip, thank you!

We released an updated version of the Bus Pirate firmware package. The firmware is exactly the same, we just changed a speed setting in the P24qp.exe quick programmer utility for MS Windows. During development we increased the baud rate of the quick programmer to make development faster, and we forgot to change it back to a safe speed for normal use.



60 Responses to Bus Pirate preorder 2 update

  • luke says:
    July 23, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    So I missed out and did not get one. When will you be selling them again?

    Reply Report comment
  • xun says:
    July 23, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    missed it, too and looking forward to a preorder 3….

    Reply Report comment
  • ReKlipz says:
    July 23, 2009 at 4:17 pm

    So… what was the issue? I’m curious. The link provided in the text must not link to the proper place, as I see nothing related to the paragraph.

    Reply Report comment
  • BiOzZ says:
    July 23, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    i already have 4 projects rotting on my bench for my preorder 2 buspirate i was one of the first pople to jump on preorder 2 becasue my dumb ass missed preorder one >.>

    Reply Report comment
  • ITIL Prince says:
    July 23, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    Haven’t received my preorder #1 yet, I guess it’s time to contact Seeed studios.

    Reply Report comment
  • byohazrd says:
    July 23, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    @itil

    My bus pirate just got off the boat (plane). I might not see it till next week.

    Here are the tracking logs.

    +Foreign Acceptance, July 18, 2009, 5:48 pm, HONG KONG

    +Foreign International Dispatch, July 20, 2009, 3:00 pm, HONG KONG AIR MAIL CENTRE, HONG KONG

    +Processed through Sort Facility, July 22, 2009, 9:57 pm, JAMAICA, NY 11405

    Reply Report comment
  • unhappy geek says:
    July 23, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    o.k. let me conclude, that means there will be another 550 happy geeks for preorder 2

    13 very unhappy geeks who filled out preorder 2 but will not get one (math and your given numbers just saying that)

    and a bunch of overall unhappy geeks like me who missed both pre-orders…..

    Hmmm… what can we do to server the 13 preorder2 people and all the others who pop up in the comments already ?

    Most easy would be a preorder3 or even better found a company who like to stock them….

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    July 23, 2009 at 11:21 pm

    @unhappy geek – The final 13 will most likely be filled with local stock.

    It’s not possible to do another pre-order until more PICs are available. There just isn’t anywhere in the world to source PIC25FJ64GA002-I/SO. If you come across any we’re totally open to suggestions.

    Reply Report comment
  • jon says:
    July 24, 2009 at 12:20 am

    Is there any reason not to use the extended temperature range chips and charge the difference in cost while availability for the industrial chips is low?

    Reply Report comment
  • slincolne says:
    July 24, 2009 at 12:29 am

    My preorder 1 turned up at work today ! There goes my weekend :-)

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    July 24, 2009 at 12:34 am

    -i/so,-e/so. Octopart.

    The -e (extended) is only $0.30 more @100 at Digi-Key, but they only have 118. It would take 500 to get started. Octopart doesn’t list the extended parts at all, Microchip Direct only has 100, with an even later lead date for -e than the -i part.

    Reply Report comment
  • Drone says:
    July 24, 2009 at 12:50 am

    I took the bus to work today. The Bus Pirate jumped out of my backpack and put a cutlass to the driver’s throat. The cops showed up. Six hours later…. Well, let’s just say it was an ugly ending. Bus Pirate – BAD.

    Reply Report comment
  • boomer says:
    July 24, 2009 at 1:00 am

    In that photo-
    IC2…I count 28 pins?
    Is that a solder bridge at pins 25-26? (right by the screen for ‘C4′)

    Mine *should* arrive in Los Angeles in the morning if my mailman doesn’t wuss out.

    Reply Report comment
  • Max says:
    July 24, 2009 at 1:17 am

    Just missed the second preorder due to an extended vacation :-(

    Maby a good time for a Bus pirate V3 with another PIC that is more available?

    [Boomer] Also saw that, Difficult to see but it looks like an almost solder bridge under this angle

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    July 24, 2009 at 1:28 am

    @boomer – yes and no. They are both ground pins with an un-masked trace between them.

    Reply Report comment
  • chris says:
    July 24, 2009 at 4:34 am

    @ian – both farnell UK and rs UK have stock of the pic24FJ64GA002-I/SO. rs don’t say how many they have, farnell have 255.

    Reply Report comment
  • Chris says:
    July 24, 2009 at 5:22 am

    @ian – Mine arrived in the UK post this morning and I upgraded to v0h straight away. Mostly for the bus sniffing feature but also because its a good way of getting to grips with the device. I noticed that the (0) menu (macro list) does not contain the bus sniffer option, though it is of course available to select. Just a small thing but thought Id say it given everything else was so good!

    @chris – another chris eh! Hehe I think UK stock is probably a bit out of the way – and much higher cost, though I guess it is an option if people are desperate.

    Reply Report comment
  • DaveMc says:
    July 24, 2009 at 5:23 am

    RS do say how many they have – you have to type in the quantity you want and click ‘check live availability’. If you just type in say 1000 then it returns with as many as they have up to that amount. They only have 19 of those PICs in stock at the moment – probably not going to help towards the 500 needed!
    Farnell and RS are also significantly more expensive than microchipdirect.com, even in the large quantities so it’s not great to order any quantity from them.

    You also have to watch for the idiots in packing at RS – we ordered 50 20-pin QFN IC’s because we couldn’t get them anywhere else within the timeframe we had. They all came individually packaged and sealed in their own anti-static bag with sticker on! What bright spark decided to take them all out of the reel in which they originally came and put them into a bag?? Bear in mind that these IC’s are less than 5mm*5mm and were put in a bag about the size of your hand. A length of the tape with all 50 in would have sufficed quite nicely!

    Reply Report comment
  • One_of_Thirteen says:
    July 24, 2009 at 5:24 am

    Mouser has 270 in stock according to their website, priced at $2.86 each in quantities of 100.

    What do you have planned for those of us in pre-order #2 who don’t get the ~550(assuming no defects) you have available?

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    July 24, 2009 at 5:37 am

    @One_of_Thirteen – The final 13 will most likely be filled with local stock.

    Reply Report comment
  • ben says:
    July 24, 2009 at 7:29 am

    @ian

    Mouser has 3…can I have one?

    http://www.mouser.com/search/productdetail.aspx?qs=v/yytcaha4d/h5r3crqdta%3d%3d

    Reply Report comment
  • Roman D says:
    July 24, 2009 at 9:16 am

    Hmm i have 42 of 004s I’m not using.. but thats a code change…

    Reply Report comment
  • Haku says:
    July 24, 2009 at 11:05 am

    I’m scratching my head over why this thing has appeared so many times on this site and all the hype surrounding it, I guess I’m missing something, namely – what purpose does this thing serve? what can you do with it?

    Reply Report comment
  • LordSpacehog says:
    July 24, 2009 at 11:12 am

    @haku it provides a direct serial interface to ICs via a aerial terminal and a usb cable to your comp. it allows you to quickly prototype and get a feel for a new IC without having to build a supporting circuit or programming anything.

    Reply Report comment
  • Eliot Phillips says:
    July 24, 2009 at 12:14 pm

    The final 13 will most likely be filled with local stock.

    I pulled that line from the original post but it looks like I should have left it.

    Reply Report comment
  • Chuck says:
    July 24, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    I’d love to know the PO3 is set to run.

    Reply Report comment
  • RyanE says:
    July 24, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    Woo!

    Got mine today!

    (Utah, USA).

    RyanE

    Reply Report comment
  • Chris says:
    July 25, 2009 at 5:31 am

    @ian – please see my post above. I noticed a tiny mistake in otherwise excellent firmware.

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    July 25, 2009 at 5:44 am

    @chris – The beta I2C sniffer is in the 2.0 release, but it’s not an official feature. I’m waiting to see the spread of microcontroller revision numbers before I finish that feature. If all (or most) Bus Pirates are REV4, then I’ll use the hardware module for decoding which should work great at high speeds. If not, then I need to finish the software decoder which is nearly complete (there’s still a bug detecting the stop condition).

    I’ll write a detailed guide to firmware v2.0 soon.

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    July 25, 2009 at 5:45 am

    adding… both hardware and software-based decoding will be available for people (like me) who have REV3 chips.

    Reply Report comment
  • Chris says:
    July 25, 2009 at 8:29 am

    @ian – That sounds good, I only mentioned it incase you had forgotten but obviously youre well on top of it!
    As a side question, surely the revision number of the chip doesnt change anything significant about the coding… Obviously none of the pinouts/… change but I dont understand what would other than some internal silicon which should surely be invisible to the user…

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    July 25, 2009 at 8:35 am

    I2C hardware on REV3 is fussy, so I used a software routine for I2C. REV4 is better (according to the errata), so we can detect the revision number and offer the hardware I2C library and hardware I2C bus sniffer if it will work. The hardware module way of doing it is less effort, code can be written in a few minutes.

    Reply Report comment
  • Code says:
    July 25, 2009 at 11:55 am

    Got my preorder #1 just today.
    Was on time… bye bye weekend. and Helo Pirate.

    Reply Report comment
  • Vik Olliver says:
    July 26, 2009 at 3:45 pm

    Just wondering: Can a bus pirate be used as a programmer for PICs and Atmel chips?

    Vik :v)

    Reply Report comment
  • Stu says:
    July 26, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    Same here,
    my postie rudely awoke me early saturday morn with a dinky package containing my buspirate! I thought I’d knock up a video of my experiences with it, the video is in the form of a quick start guide too.
    Please check it out, just go to YouTube and search for BusPirate – I seem to have the only BP related vid on the entire site, so far I hope!
    I’m hoping it’ll help some n00bs out, and whet the appetite of those still waiting on their buspirates! ;-)

    Reply Report comment
  • Roman D. says:
    July 27, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    @chris – you would think that they wouldn’t change much, but you gota watch microchip….. :) though my mistake was going from 64k to 256k….. very annoyingly, the internal regulator has to be “desabled” on one vs. “enabling it” on the other….. spent a day trying to figure out what my problem was, thought it was pcb layers grounding out at vias. Nope…. just had to pay attention ….

    Reply Report comment
  • rfxcasey says:
    July 28, 2009 at 6:17 pm

    Ok, so what’s the status? When can we expect preorder 3 to begin and who do I have to off to get one of these things? You would think with this much demand someone better get with the program cause this is losing money by the second.

    Reply Report comment
  • gen says:
    July 28, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    Still haven’t got mine. First preorder, living in France, I’m waiting…

    Reply Report comment
  • gen says:
    August 2, 2009 at 9:39 am

    ^ Got it !
    It was packed in the static bag, in (lots of) bubble wrap, inside a small carboard box.
    Nicely done.

    But 2 pins on the FTDI are soldered together, is that normal ? I can’t see it on the pictures/schematics.

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian Lesnet says:
    August 2, 2009 at 9:42 am

    @gen – There’s two ground pins next to each other and C4, is that it?

    Reply Report comment
  • gen says:
    August 2, 2009 at 9:50 am

    @ian lesnet – I’ve looked at the pinout, it’s 3v3 output and gnd that are soldered together. That explains the failing 3v3 pwm in the selftest!!
    I’ll scrape the solder off with an x-acto knife.

    thanks !

    Reply Report comment
  • gen says:
    August 3, 2009 at 8:56 am

    ^ My mistake, I was looking at the chip the wrong way. The solder bridge is normal.
    The failing test was due to my rubbish paperclip jumpers :p
    I didn’t harm the bus pirate in any way!

    Reply Report comment
  • jpipesup says:
    August 5, 2009 at 6:08 am

    I’m waiting for preorder 3…
    At what point is ordering no longer “Preordering”…

    When can we just “Order” this fantastic tool?

    Reply Report comment
  • tarik says:
    August 10, 2009 at 2:07 am

    …. waiting for preorder 3!

    Reply Report comment
  • slyck says:
    August 12, 2009 at 8:38 am

    Also waiting for preorder 3… Or even better standard stock order.

    Reply Report comment
  • blecky says:
    August 12, 2009 at 9:31 pm

    For the people waiting on another preorder, you could just build one yourself ;)

    Reply Report comment
  • jpipesup says:
    August 12, 2009 at 9:38 pm

    If I could build one myself I wouldn’t be waiting on another order!

    Seriously, how long before this is available again?

    Reply Report comment
  • Derek says:
    August 13, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    I’ve been waiting for one of these for ages, then I go on holiday and miss the preorder. When is reorder or the real deal PLEASE!

    Reply Report comment
  • Derek says:
    August 13, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    I meant preorder 3 or a full-blown production run

    Reply Report comment
  • Marc says:
    August 19, 2009 at 5:42 am

    Boy, I’d love one of these and a couple of guys in the office would too, Wehn will it be on General release or possibly a pre-order 3.

    Also how often will there be firmware updates, do you plan to extend the library?

    Marc

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian says:
    August 19, 2009 at 5:49 am

    @marc – There’s been a couple firmware updates already, it’s up to v2.1-RC2 now. Firmware updates are on the project Google Code page. There’s also v3 hardware on the way.

    Reply Report comment
  • Marc says:
    August 20, 2009 at 1:39 am

    @ian
    great news about the firmware support
    V3 hardware? any info on what its specs will be?
    Thanks
    marc

    Reply Report comment
  • tarik says:
    August 20, 2009 at 1:58 am

    Been checking this thread every day of news of whats happening and the possibility of getting one of these boards.
    Just read: http://dangerousprototypes.com/2009/07/29/bus-pirate-v3-beating-the-shortage/
    @Ian Is there a possibility of writing a SIP PIC/AVR programmer on there with V3?
    tarik

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian says:
    August 20, 2009 at 2:19 am

    @tarik – Sorry, PIC/AVR programmers fall on our ‘not it‘ list. It would be a great feature but it would require monumental, ongoing effort.

    Reply Report comment
  • djand says:
    August 27, 2009 at 1:41 am

    Has anyone received their pre-order 2 board yet? Almost 2 months and seeed_studio still has ‘processing’ as my order status.

    Reply Report comment
  • jpipesup says:
    August 27, 2009 at 5:37 am

    @djand
    Check the website that tarik posted, they have the latest info about the bus pirate orders

    here it is again
    http://dangerousprototypes.com/category/bus-pirate/

    Reply Report comment
  • Justin says:
    August 27, 2009 at 6:58 am

    I feel like this is a dumb question, but that hasn’t stopped me before!

    Does anyone know if that nice, colorful cable with the microclips comes with the bus pirate? Or is that ordered separately? If so, does anyone have a link?

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian says:
    August 27, 2009 at 7:02 am

    It’s DIY. There’s an article here about making one:

    http://hackaday.com/2009/07/02/how-to-bus-pirate-probe-cable/

    Reply Report comment
  • confused says:
    December 20, 2009 at 10:13 am

    am i the only person that can’t communicate with their pirate? is there a forum or something where i can get help with the terminal communication? it seems i can’t type anything in the terminal at all, and i never get a response, just a blinking cursor

    Reply Report comment
  • Ian says:
    December 21, 2009 at 12:10 am

    @confused – Hack a Day’s preorder 2 Bus Pirates need to have the latest firmware uploaded via USB. You can download the latest firmware from the Bus Pirate project page on Google Code.

    Reply Report comment

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