Fred

Too shy to tell us yourself, @@bluehash? Well, I'll have to do it then!
 
It looks like 43oh has won TI's Community Highlight Award. Definitely well deserved. This place has always been a great source of help and inspiration. Probably the reason why I use TI stuff rather than anyone else's.
 
Well done.

Too shy to tell us yourself, @@bluehash? Well, I'll have to do it then!
 
It looks like 43oh has won TI's Community Highlight Award. Definitely well deserved. This place has always been a great source of help and inspiration. Probably the reason why I use TI stuff rather than anyone else's.
 
Well done.

Too shy to tell us yourself, @@bluehash? Well, I'll have to do it then!
 
It looks like 43oh has won TI's Community Highlight Award. Definitely well deserved. This place has always been a great source of help and inspiration. Probably the reason why I use TI stuff rather than anyone else's.
 
Well done.

Too shy to tell us yourself, @@bluehash? Well, I'll have to do it then!
 
It looks like 43oh has won TI's Community Highlight Award. Definitely well deserved. This place has always been a great source of help and inspiration. Probably the reason why I use TI stuff rather than anyone else's.
 
Well done.

Too shy to tell us yourself, @@bluehash? Well, I'll have to do it then!
 
It looks like 43oh has won TI's Community Highlight Award. Definitely well deserved. This place has always been a great source of help and inspiration. Probably the reason why I use TI stuff rather than anyone else's.
 
Well done.

Too shy to tell us yourself, @@bluehash? Well, I'll have to do it then!
 
It looks like 43oh has won TI's Community Highlight Award. Definitely well deserved. This place has always been a great source of help and inspiration. Probably the reason why I use TI stuff rather than anyone else's.
 
Well done.

Too shy to tell us yourself, @@bluehash? Well, I'll have to do it then!
 
It looks like 43oh has won TI's Community Highlight Award. Definitely well deserved. This place has always been a great source of help and inspiration. Probably the reason why I use TI stuff rather than anyone else's.
 
Well done.

I posted a review of PartsBox.io to my Youtube channel, for anyone interested. It's a nice tool I stumbled upon a while ago when I was organizing the lab and looking for a better way than Excel to keep parts inventory.
 

I quite like changing the keyword colour in Visual Studio to the background colour. Start typing and words then mysteriously vanish. Not too hard to work out what's going on, but still fun.

Experimenting with stencil cutting in my CO2 Laser. KiCad -> HPGL -> G-code so using vector cutting, can adjust cutout size for beam width. I am using PPI-mode (Pulses Per Inch) and adjustable pulse width in order to deliver relatively constant energy to the cut. PPI-mode is implemented by two CPLDs for counting stepper pulses and a 2553 for handling calculations and pulsing the laser. This kind of circuitry may be retrofitted to chinese lasers that only uses simple on/off switching resulting in uneven cutting in the corners (in vector mode).
 

The masking tape sorts out the melted edges on the mylar. I've not tried kapton myself, but I believe it should cut well.
 
The slightly misshaped holes are entirely down to the fact that I'm cutting small rectangles at very high speed. Asking the head to turn a fast sharp 90 degree corner means there's some overshoot and vibration. You'd never really notice if the shape wasn't so small.
 
Raster engraving might solve this completely. I've not looked into this as it's certainly good enough for my current needs. LQFP and QFN worked fine last night, despite using crusty old paste that I thinned out with flux and stirred with a screwdriver! I'll try taking some photos.

A nice project. Good to see PotM back, despite the lack of entries. Personally, I've been busy on other stuff but just started doing some MSP430 stuff again.

MSP430x5xx family has internal 47k pull up on RESET, no need for external one. 1nF cap on RESET line (regarding JTAG / SBW) doesn't improve anything.

Also, I hear the MSP-FET is 60% off. ;-)

Also, I hear the MSP-FET is 60% off. ;-)

Also, I hear the MSP-FET is 60% off. ;-)

Also, I hear the MSP-FET is 60% off. ;-)

The link that @@yyrkoon posted says $239
 
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

I find that MSPFlasher is the best way to sort out updating the FET on a launchpad. My weird update experience was when I had both version 5 and 6 of CCS installed once.

Awesome work. It's my son's 4th birthday coming up and I know he'd love something similar (but based on Dusty Crophopper).
 
I should take inspiration from yours and bump it up the ever-growing project list.

Awesome work. It's my son's 4th birthday coming up and I know he'd love something similar (but based on Dusty Crophopper).
 
I should take inspiration from yours and bump it up the ever-growing project list.

Got it more or less finished and just need to do some touch up.  This is what inspired it...

This is the airframe and control panel put together.  It consists of two cardboard boxes with corrugated plastic wings cut out of a discarded storage box.  The panel is made from a paint stirring stick and the switches, pot, and buttons are recycled from other projects or stuff I tore apart.  The lights are mounted on coffee can lids and covered with plastic cups from something we ate.  Everything is held together with hot glue and brads.

I went to the dollar store and got some blue and yellow wrapping paper and glued it to the airframe with outdoor Mod Podge (works great for this sort of thing).  Then I put another coat of Mod Podge on it for strength and some lacquer to help weather proof it a bit.

This is the avionics ready to be installed.  There is a 3W LED for a searchlight in front and an Adafruit 24 light neopixel ring in back (not shown) that is driven by a special built MSP430 and Energia.  The searchlight can be dimmed or brightened with a potentiometer.  The sound comes from an old greeting card I tore apart and repurposed.  The other buttons light up LEDs on the panel.

We also decorated it with an Energia sticker.  Here it is being taken for a test flight.  It has pretty good maneuverability - he missed the brick wall.

It does look like it was made from a cardboard box and it lacks the lines of the original but the customer is happy.

Got an email today about a new LaunchPad supporting hardware cryptography - mainly aimed at supporting HTTPS for your IoT projects. Promo pricing $16.99, normally $24.99.
 
http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-tm4c129exl

Got an email today about a new LaunchPad supporting hardware cryptography - mainly aimed at supporting HTTPS for your IoT projects. Promo pricing $16.99, normally $24.99.
 
http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-tm4c129exl

Got an email today about a new LaunchPad supporting hardware cryptography - mainly aimed at supporting HTTPS for your IoT projects. Promo pricing $16.99, normally $24.99.
 
http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-tm4c129exl