Parts: SPI EEPROM (25AA/25LC)

June 30, 2009 by Ian 11 Comments

3EEPROM-SPI

Microchip’s 25AA/25LC EEPROMs are data storage chips with a simple 3-wire interface. The 25AA/LC is an SPI version of the common 24AA/LC I2C EEPROM. It comes in capacities of 128bytes to 128kilobytes. We looked at the smallest, the 128byte 25AA010A.

There are Bus Pirate demonstrations for most types of serial EEPROMs. Check out our previous 1-wire (DS2431) and I2C (24LC1025) EEPROM posts.

Continue below to see our test circuit and a demonstration of the 25AA010 EEPROM. We used the Bus Pirate to play with this chip from our PC. For a limited time you can get your own Bus Pirate, fully assembled and shipped worldwide, for only $30.

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Motors And Microcontrollers 101

June 29, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 7 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnWJki-zwsE]

[Humberto] from NerdKits sends in the newest addition to their excellent collection of videos. This video goes over the basics of DC motor control with microcontrollers. They begin by showing nine experiments and observations that can be done by the average hacker with a multimeter, motor, LED, and jumperwire. Using the results from these they show how to model and calculate the properties of a motor. Lastly, it shows how to control a motor using PWM. They have supplemental text and demonstration code for an ATmega168 on their website.

Parts: ShiftBrite RGB LED Module (A6281)

June 29, 2009 by Ian 11 Comments

shiftbriteii

Macetech’s ShiftBrite is a high-power RGB LED coupled with an Allegro A6281 backpack. The A6281 uses three 10bit pulse-width modulators to mix millions of colors using the red, green, and blue elements in the RGB LED. Multiple modules can be chained together for bigger projects, like the ShiftBrite table.

Below the break we demonstrate a ShiftBrite module using the Bus Pirate. For a limited time you can get your own Bus Pirate, fully assembled and shipped worldwide, for only $30.

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IDisplay, Webcam Multitouch

June 26, 2009 by Eliot 32 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlLY0zic7u0%5D

Embedded above is an interesting multitouch demo by [Lahiru]. The goal of the project was to find an easy way to retrofit current LCDs for multitouch. Instead of using infrared or capacitive recognition, it uses a standard webcam mounted overhead. To calibrate, you draw polygon around the desktop screen as the webcam sees it. The camera can identify the location of markers placed on the screen and their color. iDisplay can also recognize hands making the pinch motion and sends these as touch events via TUIO, so it works with existing touch software. It’s written in C++ using OpenCV for image processing with openFrameworks as the application framework.

[via NUI Group]

Automated Paintball Sentry

June 26, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 32 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYKwih8Izk]

Reader, [Ben Godding], sends in the video for his senior design team’s automated paintball sentry. The frame is made of plasma cut aluminum. The paintball gun uses a custom hopper mounted remotely from the gun body. It has two webcams offering a 160 degree field of vision, and the image processing is done by a dual core pentium CPU booting windows xp off a compact flash card. The computer interfaces with the 1/4scale RC servos using a PIC24. The paintball sentry can either be configured via a computer GUI when a monitor is available or a baclkit keypad and 4×20 charachter display in the field.

Related: [Jared Bouck]’s paintball gun turret

Parts: I2C Real-time Clock Calendar (PCF8563)

June 26, 2009 by Ian 8 Comments

The PCF8563 is a real-time clock/calendar/alarm chip with an I2C interface. This would be useful in projects where the primary microcontroller doesn’t have enough resources for an interrupt driven clock.

We demonstrate the PCF8563 using the Bus Pirate after the break. For a limited time you can get your own Bus Pirate, fully assembled and shipped worldwide, for only $30.

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Home Made Solder Pot

June 26, 2009 by Steve Watkins 29 Comments

solder pot

Our reader [Damir] built a home made soldering pot. It can be used to solder and desolder components. To remove a through hole component, the solder side is placed in the bath. Then the component is removed with pliers. It is also possible to solder components, by placing the leads in the molten solder; similar to wave soldering. Another common use is tinning self stripping wire. The insulation of the wire is designed to burn off, allowing the strip and tin phase to be single step. This solder pot would be a nice addition to the hacker’s soldering station we had covered in 2008. For more pictures, check out the photo gallery. In the video embedded below, a transformer is easily removed from a modem.

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