Spiffed's Electronics Blog Spiffed's Computing Blog
iDuino MaxSerial Freeduino 2009 DuinoStamp StickDuino MPGuino   Bus Pirate PTH ATX Switch USB7 USB to TTL Serial Converter Fan Controller
Arduino 1KB bootloader Arduino on ATmega328

Entries from Spiff's Electronics Notebook tagged with 'Serial'


Build a MaxSerial Freeduino (April 9, 2008)

About

The MaxSerial is a MAX232 based serial board compatible with the Arduino environment.

Buy

I'm pleased to offer these as a kit, bare PCB, and fully assembled. Use the below options to purchase with-out the optional 3.3 volt supply or explore your other options.

Full Kit Board Only Fully Assembled

Continue reading "Build a MaxSerial Freeduino"


Posted by spiffed at 2:40 AM

Introducing the USB7 (March 28, 2008)

I'd like to introduce you to my latest idea, the USB7. 6 digits of 7 segment awesomeness all controllable from a USB virtual com port (via AVR-CDC). You send it numbers, it displays them, what could be easier?

The protocol is very simple; the device accepts a string of numbers, '+', '-', '.', space, and upper/lower hex digits (A-E). The device will buffer up to 6 characters to display. When you send a newline or carriage return (0x0A or 0x0D) the display will update with the buffered data. Any other character is thrown away. It is important to remember that decimals take up no character space because they share a digit with the previous number. This means you can't start a string with a '.', you must first send a character (even space) then the '.'.

After the jump I'll set it up to show my download speed using LCD Smartie.

Continue reading "Introducing the USB7"


Posted by spiffed at 9:47 AM | Comments (2)

A max232 Based 'duino (March 8, 2008)

I, and some others it seems, have spotty results talking to the "official" s and their Freeduino counterparts. To that end, I present a max232 based design, complete with Diecimila layout and DTR reset.

Continue reading "A max232 Based 'duino"


Posted by spiffed at 1:14 AM | Comments (0)

Single Sided FT232RL USB-Serial Converter (January 25, 2008)

Available assembled or as a kit from our WebStore.

Unsatisfied with everything else, I present the simple, single-sided, breadboardable, FT232RL based USB to TTL Serial converter.

I know you're thinking "But everyone under the sun makes an FT232 kit!", and you're right. But they all suffer from a selection of problems:

  • Double sided boards with tiny vias. Not only are these a pain to solder by hand, they also require perfect precision to etch and drill at home.
  • 7 million parts butted as close to each other as the pick-and-place can tolerate. I can't assemble these with tweezers.
  • Signals and power brought out to a DIL style header. There's simply no effective way to plug a DIL header into a breadboard. It's a functional system for wirewrap, perfboards, and stripboards but so is a DIP style connection. It's not very helpful for custom PCBs either, since I might as well integrate the whole circuit into the board.
  • You get the idea.

The answer of course is to design a simple, roomy, single sided board, with a DIP like fit.

Continue reading "Single Sided FT232RL USB-Serial Converter"


Posted by spiffed at 12:27 PM

Serial LCD Controller (June 26, 2005)

makes a number of rather nice serial (and USB based) LCD and VFDs. What they do not make, are inexpensive LCDs. Thankfully, hacking serial onto a cheap parallel LCD is sometimes almost as good.

Continue reading "Serial LCD Controller"


Posted by spiffed at 1:11 PM