Tobis Blog
HARDWARE DEFINED SOFTWARE
FUNcube Dongle Pro unboxing
My FUNcube Dongle Pro arrived today (via FedEx). Ingenious tool, the first tests after the firmware upgrade were very promising; even with the “universal”-antenna which I ‘stole’ from my trusty Yaesu VX-3E… 
Using windows, the usage of the ‘FCD’ is easy. Even though I am able to change frequency under Linux, it is a matter of demodulation software there.
More about working with the FCD hopefully soon, now some exclusive images…
CNCc R2 and ‘the gimmik’
Since my translation plugin is broken; this post will be primarily english – as long there is no working version of the plugin.
Some of you might remember my little Tweet on Nov. 16. about the PCB layout being ready for production. The pic isn’t actually the file I sent out for production; mainly because I found this bug…
So *surprise* the finished PCBs arrived; all 10 (I acutally got 11) were $29.90 shipped (to germany – I think I love you, ITead…)… (click for bigger image)
Beauty, aren’t they?! – so I got down into my lab and…
Har! Beauty 
So. What is this anyway? CNCc is a CNC peripheral controller using an Atmel AtMega644 clocked at 20MHz and connected to the PC via USB (FT232). Features:
- USB 2.0 to serial using FT232
- 3x 10A / 250V Relais
- 1x 8A / 250V solid state relais, optocoupled.
- 1x 30A / 30V P-HEXFET motor driver. (For coolant pump)
- 1x high speed interrupt input
- 8x general porpose IO, configurabe as: GPIO, analog in and PWM out
- 1x NETSYNC header with high speed interrupt for net frequency synchronisation (for spindle RPM drive)
- 1x AUX header for general expandation (RPM sensor etc.). Features an I²C port.
- 2x Status LEDs, 1x Power LED and 3x LEDs indicating relais switched on.
I will use this baby to controll compressor, vac pump, shopvac and coolant flow (maybe spindle-RPM later too) via the PC.
The design isn’t fully tested yet, but tests are underway. I have the design and manufacturing files (CC-BY 3.0) here for you.
And then I got this package from seeed I ordered some time ago…
What might be in there…?
Wohoo! It’s the BusPirate 4.0! – Beauty!!
That’s all for now; maybe I will post something on MSP430 dev soon…
Graphics card air supply
It was warm this summer, but my PC obviously didn’t like that. After 5, max. 10 minuts the screen went black and shortly after the whole PC crashed. To cut a long story short, it was the graphics card. In the mentioned computer was a MSI brand nVidia graphics card – and for extra quietness it was a fanless one. I’m no graphics guy besides it was cheap.
But after exchanging the card with the same one did not solve the problem, the screen went black after 10 minutes. So I took a closer look…
As you can see it’s a standard cheapo card. But whats that… ?! Is that an unpopulated header reading “FAN1″ on a fanless graphics card?! Odd to find something like that. Maybe it’s there… for … you know … a … FAN?! A qhick test revealed, that indeed the header supplied 12VDC. That’s nice; no need to hack it from elsewhere.
So I chose an “ultra quiet” 40mm fan from Noiseblocker(R) which was with 3,95€ not quite cheap, but it was indeed pretty quiet. Time to get that solderin iron online!
Unfortunately it was a 4-layer PCB with great thermal properties, which made the removal of the RoHS conform leadfree solder not that easy.
But it worked – so plug in and go!
It turned out, that standard woodscrews – the ones you can buy anywhere – are perfect for mounting fans on aluminium coolers. So it’s a matter of pulling them tight and installing the card again…
Beauty! And what’s the matter with stability now?
Didn’t crash since! – And that’s that with fanless graphics cards….
Ham Radio Friedrichshafen 2011
As every year there was the famous Ham Radio Friedrichshafen, the biggest ham radio exhibition in Germany….
