How to design your own LED driver

LED-driver-board

If you find yourself in need of a driver for a high power string of LEDs this is a must read. [Limpkin] just designed this driver as a contract job. He can't show us the schematic, but he did share some tips on how to build an LED driver around a MAX16834 chip. As you move to higher power designs the barriers to success pile up rather quickly. Using a chip like the MAX16834 really helps to … [Read more...]

Hacking an iButton

breadboard1

Maxim's iButtons, which are small ICs in button-sized disks, are starting to show up in more and more places. They have a range of uses, from temperature loggers to identification, and all use the 1-wire protocol to communicate. Over a furrtek, they hacked an iButton used for buying things from vending machines and created an infinite money cheat. They built a small rig based on the ATmega8 to … [Read more...]

Parts: 1-Wire temperature sensor (DS1822)

cover

Download: buspirate.v0d.zip Dallas/Maxim's 1-Wire protocol is the most requested addition to the Bus Pirate.  We finally got some 1-Wire parts, and today we'll demonstrate the DS1822 1-Wire digital thermometer. Grab the datasheet (PDF) and follow along. This post is accompanied by release v.0d of the Bus Pirate firmware for hardware version 0. This includes the new 1-Wire protocol library, … [Read more...]

Parts: 133MHz-16.2kHz programmable oscillator (DS1077)

schematic-450

The DS1077 is a 5volt, 133MHz to 16kHz programmable clock source. The internal frequency divider is configured over a simple I2C interface, and the chip requires no external parts. Not bad for under $2. We used the Bus Pirate to test this chip before using it in a project. Grab the datasheet (PDF) and follow along. … [Read more...]