"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea"
Dave dropped by Apex Electronics in Sun Valley just outside LA, the biggest and oldest surplus electronics store in California (and probably the US?) . Come on a tour through the aladdin’s cave of surplus electronics and hardware.
BACK IN STOCK – MicroBuilder LPC1343 (ARM Cortex M3) – v1.6. The LPC1343 is a low-power, 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessor designed specifically for embedded devices. This is a fully assembled version of the LPC1343 Reference Design from talented Parisian designer, Microbuilder. No soldering required (female header pins are pre-soldered onto the board), this devboard is ready to go out of the box.
Please note that while there are some great introductory getting-started tutorials for this board, its best used by those with microcontroller experience. If you’ve played with AVR or PICs and are intrigued by the low cost and ultra fast 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 series, this is the dev board to get! If you’re just getting started with microcontrollers and electronics you should check out the Arduino which is very beginner-friendly.
In addition to publishing the schematics and layout files, MicroBuilder has written a full software library for the LPC1300 family. This allows you to quickly get started with all on-board peripherals, so you can focus on your own application functionality. The software library includes complete GCC-based startup code and details on setting up an ARM development environment using open source tools. Along with a standard Makefile, project files for the open-source CodeLite C/C++ IDE and the commercial GCC-based Crossworks for ARM are provided.
Within minutes, you’ll be using the USB interface for printf() debugging, reading from the analog inputs using analogRead(), tweaking pins without having to look up registers, etc. and best of all no ARM or JTAG programmer is required! The chip comes with a built in USB bootloader that appears as a very small disk drive. To reprogram, simply press the Bootload button and drag your new firmware file into the USB drive that appears. Then press Reset and your code is running. Is that cool or what?
Check it!
Power the board via the 2.1mm DC jack (6-12V) or the mini-B USB connector (5V). There’s an onboard 3.3V regulator (LT1113)
Debugging LED on pin 2.10 and SWD connectors for programming and debugging
Open source toolchain (GPL) and software library (BSD)
USB 2.0 HID and Mass Storage support built right into the ROM
32K of flash, 8K of SRAM…running at 72 MHz
Built-into-ROM USB bootloader works with any computer and OS
Full Speed USB, TTL UART, SPI and I2C interfaces
Up to 42 General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins with configurable pull-up/pull-down resistors
8 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter pins
Four general purpose counter/timers with a total of four capture inputs and 13 match outputs
The LED strips are mounted on an outdoor trellace which functions as a lightning simulator, outdoor breathalyzer, graphic equalizer synced to music, and a few other effects with sound.
This clone acts just like an Arduino, and works with the latest Arduino software. For many projects it can even be preferable! The kit includes all parts necessary, the assembly is straightforward and well documented, using just a soldering iron anyone can complete it within 10 or 15 minutes. This version of the Boarduino does not have a DC jack. That means you cant use a 9V adapter or battery holder with it (unless you build a 5V power supply). it does have USB built in and you can power your project or USB or by using a Mintyboost kit (which takes 2 AA batteries)
Specifications:
Designed to plug into a breadboard for easy prototyping
Petite size, only 2.75″ x 0.8″ (75mm x 20mm)
All ‘standard’ pins are brought out – Digital 0-13, Analog 0-5, ARef, 5V, 3V, Ground, and Reset
Chip comes pre-programmed with a “no-wait” Arduino bootloader (Read more here)
4 LEDs! There’s a green power-good LED, a red “pin 13″ LED (just like the Arduino), and a pair of RX and TX indicator LEDs for debugging the serial connection
Nearly-all-surfacemount design. We left the chip as through-hole to make it easier to upgrade and repair. All surface mount parts are pre-assembled and tested.
Reset button
ATmega328P, running at 16.00 MHz, just like all Arduinos
6-pin standard ICSP header
USB miniB jack
500mA fuse protects your computer’s USB port from overcurrent
Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because they are part of nature. The new position could have a huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry.
The new position was declared in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Department of Justice late Friday in a case involving two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.
“We acknowledge that this conclusion is contrary to the longstanding practice of the Patent and Trademark Office, as well as the practice of the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies that have in the past sought and obtained patents for isolated genomic DNA,” the brief said.
…
The issue of gene patents has long been a controversial and emotional one. Opponents say that genes are products of nature, not inventions, and should be the common heritage of mankind. They say that locking up basic genetic information in patents actually impedes medical progress. Proponents say genes isolated from the body are chemicals that are different from those found in the body and therefore are eligible for patents.
The Patent and Trademark Office has sided with the proponents and has issued thousands of patents on genes of various organisms, including on an estimated 20 percent of human genes.
What is “Ask an engineer”? From the electronics enthusiast to the professional community – “Ask an Engineer” has a little bit of everything for everyone. If you’re a beginner, or a seasoned engineer – stop in and see what we’re up to! We have demos of projects and products we’re working on, we answer your engineering and electronics questions and we have a trivia question + give away each week. Mosfet the cat stops by too. Previous chats can be viewed at http://www.adafruit.com/ask
From the forums – Experts were asking what is that “electronic thing” from Yemen that arrived in the UK that is causing all the shipping problems today on the news – They say it was “attached to a toner cartridge” – our guess is printer cartridges are going to get more expensive no matter what this turns out to be. The gov is putting the photos out there… looks like something pretty bad may have been avoided, the international intelligence folks may have caught something dangerous – good work.
AMP UP THE SPOOKINESS QUOTIENT AT YOUR HOUSE THIS HALLOWEEN BY DONNING A LAB COAT, COLLECTING SOME PVC TUBING, LEDS, DIODES, AND RESISTORS, AND BUILDING THE GADGETS BELOW! EACH PROJECT INCLUDES A PARTS LIST (RUBBER SPIDERS, FAKE BLOOD AND VAMPIRE TEETH NOT INCLUDED), SCHEMATIC AND COMPLETE BUILD INSTRUCTIONS. HAPPY HAUNTING!
Dick Worked the Graveyard Shift
When the local church needed storm effects for a skit, sound man Dick Neubert found the thunder on the Internet and added “lightning” with a photoflash strobe. In all, this common strobe design will deliver some very uncommon effects for your next Halloween spookfest.
Cutting Pumpkins the Tesla Way
Rick Crammond created a gadget for cutting Halloween pumpkins that is powered by the faucet in a kitchen sink. The water pressure drives a stack of CDs that has been converted into a turbine.
Bill Had That Weird Sensation He Was Being Watched
Partial to things that go bump in the night, Bill built a circuit that slowly illuminates and fades a pair of red LEDs. Install it in a skull as a Halloween prop or if spooky things aren’t your thing, use it as a fancy power indicator for a home appliance.
There is a ATtiny85 microcontroller on the business card that becomes an USB keyboard pre-programmed to type out text when it detects that CAPS-LOCK has been pressed a few times.
Well, I recently decided to play around with some electronics again, because I’m interested in how I might be able to leverage my programming skills in the “real world”. So I started poking around online trying to figure out where to start. I know almost nothing about this world anymore, but I quickly became aware of a popular, neat little programmable microcontroller called the Arduino…
…What’s bizarre is that it’s so much fun. I mean, I’ve built large, complex websites with tens of thousands of lines of code that use a dozen different languages, frameworks, and technologies. So how come writing 6 lines of code to make a stupid little LED blink makes me grin like an idiot?
The Electrical Engineering Department in the School of Engineering at Stanford University seeks a Senior Engineer whose primary role is to foster and grow the Open Source Networking Hardware Community. The Open Source Networking Hardware Project is a key initiative targeted at creating a massive, open source repository of computer networking hardware designs so as to enable researchers and students in the classroom to develop and deploy new ideas in networking hardware. The program started several years ago, and has been funded by NSF, Xilinx, Cisco, Google, Juniper, and several other companies. Currently, there are over 40 designs in the Open Source Networking Hardware repository. The program is currently focused on three tasks: (1) Building a worldwide, thriving “open-source hardware” developer community (2) Building, organizing and deploying an Open Source repository of Networking Hardware design modules that can be targeted at available Open Source Networking Hardware platforms like the NetFPGA, Xilinx XUP, etc. (3) Building a web portal, design repository, build environment and scripts to encourage user friendly design packaging and contribution, and (4) Getting the word out and evangelizing the benefits of the project to users and networking hardware design communities worldwide.
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