The little gerber viewer that could!

Of course I’m talking about gerbv!  For those of you who don’t know, gerbv is a free Gerber or RS-274X viewer that comes from the gEDA Project.  It’s free, it’s open source, it’s cross platform… (quick link to windows version download here) and that’s awesome.

So, why do you care?  Well, if you are building your own circuits and want to get a PCB made then usually the format you’ll need to export your design into is a gerber.  The reason you should grab gerbv is to double check for errors.  When you design a PCB in your favorite circuit layout tool, whether it be Eagle, Altium, or my favorite DipTrace, you should double check for errors.

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Cheap logic analyzer (ELSA100)

I recently purchased this logic analyzer.  It’s a clone of the Saleae logic analyzer.  Available for 50$ here with 10 mini grabbers.  It appears to perform exactly like the Saleae except its noticeably larger.  It even uses Saleae’s software.  It does ship from over seas, and might take a little while but it did arrive, and had free shipping.

The cable that ships with it doesn’t have wires broken out for the power supply pins, but it appears there are 2 extra pins, 3.3v and 5v power sources.  I’ll have to see about adding 2 more pins to the connector to utilize them.  The factory cable has 8 logic wires, and 2 grounds, but the connector has lots of extra spots for wires, extra grounds and those power supply pins.

Anyway, you can’t beat the price.  Oh it’s also supported by Sigrok, an open source logic analyzer that is multi platform.

LED Fireflies in a Jar (v1.0)

Me and my wife recently had our first child.  I’ve been trying to come up with some projects I can do for the kid.  Well, around this time of the year the fireflies go crazy around my house, so we came up with the idea to do led fireflies in a jar.  It should be something cool for him to stare at and is easy to build.

Schematics, C source code and hex file are available here on our wiki.  If you want to build one it should only take about an hour.

I’m planning on making a version 2 with some changes, stay tuned for that one.