The Hackaday Store Is Having A Sale

The Hackaday Store has been up and running for a year and a half now, sending out Hackaday Omnibus, t-shirts, [Alex Rich]’s Stickvice, and an entire MeArm-y from [Phenoptix]. After eighteen months, the enslaved robots in the warehouse are plotting a rebellion, so we’re stamping that right out with a Spring sale in the Hackaday Store!

The Bulbdial Clock turns pretty lights into a clock.
The Bulbdial Clock turns pretty lights into a clock.

For the next two weeks (or while supplies last) you can get up to 30% off a range of toys, tools, and kits including the Crazyflie 2.0 quadcopter, [Travis Goodspeed]’s Facedancer21 GoodFET board, the Bulbdial Clock kit, the mindbending Cordwood Puzzle from [Boldport], and dozens of other items.

Want some sweet Hackaday swag? The CRT Android and Robot Head tee (limited sizes) are 30% off, as is our women’s fit Hackaday.io t-shirt. The Hackaday edition Trinket Pro, TV-B-Gone, and Huzzah ESP8266 dev board are 10% off, so there’s no excuse not to start your next Hackaday.io project now. Check out the Spring sale today and get yourself a deal.

Shipping is free on US orders over $35, Canadian orders over $50, and International orders over $75 (Unfortunately we’re unable to ship to all countries right now). Sale items are at clearance prices and are final sale. We will only exchange if the item is faulty (if the item is no longer available you will be given store credit).

Buying the CRT Android tee will make you more popular. Consume.
Buying the CRT Android tee will make you more popular. Consume.

 

An Omnibus In Every Stocking

We know that hackers like to procrastinate. But right now is the limit. This is the last day you can order the Omnibus Volume 2 and have it (most likely) in your hands in time to put one in everyone’s stocking. Tomorrow will be too late.

Take advantage of the promo code which expires at the end of tomorrow. Use coupon code OMNIBUS2015 and get $7 off the price. There were 100 of those codes left at the time of writing.

What is the Omnibus all about? Check out [Brian’s] explanation of what makes the Omnibus so special. This body of work is a huge achievement and I’m proud that we’re able to recognize the effort of everyone here at Hackaday with something you hold in your hands which will live forever.

We Just Gave Away $1000 To A Voter

Last week we issued a challenge to everyone on Hackaday: vote in the Hackaday Prize Community Voting, and someone is going to with a $1000 gift card for the Hackaday Store. How is this going to work? I’m going to find a random person on Hackaday.io, and if they have voted, they win a thousand dollar gift card. If they have not voted, I pick a random person from the set of people who have voted. Too complex? Here’s the video:

The winner of the $1000 Hackaday Prize gift card is [Nolan Moore]. He voted for the most Amazingly Engineered project, and the bits aligned to award him a great gift for participating. The other guy? The other guy should have voted.

A NEW ROUND

Thought this would stop when we finally gave away a thousand dollar gift card? Nope. Right now there’s a new round of community voting. The theme is ‘Best Documented’. All you have to do is choose the project presented to you that is Best Documented. We’re going to let this round stew for a while but on July 17th, at around 2200 UTC, I’m going pick a random person on Hackaday.io. If that person has voted, they get a $1000 gift card. The next time I do this, there won’t be a guaranteed winner; we’re only giving out a gift card if the random person selected has voted. There will, like the other rounds of community voting, be a few consolation prizes distributed to people who have voted if no one snatches the big prize.

So what do you have to do for a chance at winning a $1000 gift card? Click here and vote. Do it now.

Review: DSLogic Logic Analyzer

Logic analyzers historically have been the heavy artillery in an engineer’s arsenal. For many of us, the name invokes mental images of large HP and Tektronix iron with real CRT screens. Logic connections were made through pods, with hundreds of leads weaving their way back to the test equipment. The logic analyzer came out when all else failed, when even a four channel scope wasn’t enough to figure out your problems. Setting them up was a pain – if you were lucky, the analyzer had a PC keyboard interface. If not, you were stuck typing your signal names into the front panel keyboard. Once setup though, logic analyzers were great at finding bugs. You can see things you’d never see with another tool – like a data bus slowly settling out after the read or write strobe.

There have been a number of USB based logic analyzers introduced in recent years, but they didn’t really catch on until Saleae released their “Logic” line of devices. Low cost, high-speed, and easy to use – these devices were perfect. They also inspired an army of clone devices based upon the same Cypress Semiconductor parts. DSLogic designed by DreamSource Labs, can be thought of as an open source evolution of the original Saleae device.

DSLogic appeared in 2013 as a Kickstarter campaign for an open source logic analyzer with an optional oscilloscope extension. I think it’s safe to say that they did well, raising $111,497 USD, more than 10 times their initial goal of $10,000 USD. These days both the DSLogic and the oscilloscope extension are available at The Hackaday Store. In this review we’re focusing on the logic analyzer portion of the tool. 

Click past the break for the full story!

Continue reading “Review: DSLogic Logic Analyzer”

Hackaday Wants All Your Bitcoin

Bitcoin, the solution to the two generals’ problem, an economic case study in the history of currency, and the reason AMD graphics cards were so expensive a few years ago, is now accepted in The Hackaday Store.

Yes, we have a store, loaded up with swag, tools, and cool toys. We’re always stocking more  If you have coin sitting around, you can pick up a great little logic analyzer, a 3D printer, an ingenius two channel multimeter, ESP8266 boards, the ever popular Hackaday swag and a ton more. That 3D printer will cost you ฿ 3.75. A Mooshimeter is just ฿ 0.50.

It’s the perfect time to turn magical Internet money into something with real, intrinsic value, before the value of Bitcoin drops even more. Sure, we accept government-backed currency as well… but when will you have the chance to spend those hard-mined dollars hashes?

TRINKET EDC CONTEST DRAWING #5 RESULTS

The final random drawing for Hackaday’s Trinket Everyday Carry Contest was held tonight, and the winner is [flaming_goat] with Trinket Pocket IR Analyser/Transmitter!

ir2In addition to having an awesome username, [flaming_goat] loves IR protocols. Trinket Pocket IR Analyser/Transmitter is a standalone device to read, analyze and transmit Infrared (IR) signals. The IR portion of the project is handled by a Vishay TSOP38238 (PDF link) The 382 series is a 3 pin module. It comes in several variants, each tuned to a specific carrier frequency. The 38238 will decode IR signals at 38 kHz.

The demodulated IR signals are fed into the Pro Trinket, where they can be analyzed. Data is either sent through the serial terminal or displayed on the on-board 1.44″ TFT LCD. Source code for the whole project is up on [flaming_goat’s] GitHub repo.

[flaming_goat] will be receiving a Teensy 3.1 and an Audio+SD adapter from The Hackaday Store. If the Pro Trinket is a gateway drug, then Teensy 3.1 is the hardcore stuff. Powered by a Freescale Kinetis ARM Cortex M4 processor in a tiny package, the Teensy 3.1 packs quite a punch. You might think all that power would mean complex tools, but Teensy 3.1 is still easy to program using the Arduino IDE. The Audio+SD adapter board gives Teensy 3.1 the ability to create some pretty decent audio, thanks to the Teensy Audio Library.

This was the last weekly drawing for the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest, but there is still time to enter and win the big prizes! The deadline is January 3 at 12am PDT. That’s just about 3 days to enter – so procrastinators, get in the game!

TRINKET EDC CONTEST DRAWING #4 RESULTS

The fourth of five random drawings for Hackaday’s Trinket Everyday Carry Contest was held tonight. The winner is [davish] with his entry, Trinket Watch. 

twatch3[davish] loves the current crop of smartwatches, but he wants one he can truly call his own. He’s using the Pro Trinket along with an Adafruit 1.3″ OLED for display duties. That little OLED can show a lot more than just numbers though. [davish] already has Adafruit’s logo demo running on the device. Trinket Watch is going to start out as a simple Arduino coded “dumbwatch”. After the basics of time and date are out of the way, [davish] hopes to add a Bluetooth module and turn Trinket Watch into a full-fledged smartwatch.

trinket-prize-cordwoodWe hope [davish] enjoys his new Cordwood Puzzle from The Hackaday Store. No jigsaws here, cordwood is a puzzle that involves solder! If you get a piece wrong, it’s time to break out that solder wick and fix your mistake. The puzzle is built using the cordwood assembly technique which was popular in the 1950’s and 1960s. We’re not kidding about it being a puzzle either – there are no instructions for this kit! [davish] will know he’s got it right when all 3 LEDs light up.

teensy-3-point-1-in-storeIf you didn’t win this week, all is not lost, you still have one more chance to win a random drawing! Our next drawing will be on 12/30/2014 at 9pm EST. The prize will be a Teensy 3.1 and audio adapter as a prize. To be eligible you need to submit your project as an official entry and publish at least one project log during the week.

The main contest entry window closes on January 2, 2015 – but don’t wait for the last minute! Hit the contest page and build some awesome wearable or pocketable electronics!