#PCB Header

[addohaislam2000]

Wire mount sockets, PCB Header, board mount headers, header plugs

DEUTSCH 6 Position Rectangular Housing Connector Plug Gray

[trry2ddlr]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/interconnect--pin-and-socket-connectors--header-plug-board-mount/5499922-6-te-connectivity-1136089

PCB header plug, LED chips, Pin headers, Receptacle housing, Pin receptacles

AMP-LATCH 26 Position Through-Hole Dual Row Straight 2.54 mm Pin Header

[addohaislam2000]

What is a PCB Header, header plug, socket receptacle, Pin headers

DEUTSCH 6 Position Free Hanging Housings Plug Black Rectangular Connector

[tmothy2pr]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/interconnect--pin-and-socket-connectors--header-plug-board-mount/1-794073-1-te-connectivity-3550126

Socket Connector Contacts, micro-plugs, Connectors, Plug connectors, Wire crimp

Mini-Universal MATE-N-LOK 8 Position Dual Row Through-Hole Straight Pin Header

[iving2dye]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/interconnect--pin-and-socket-connectors--header-plug-board-mount/bm04b-srss-tb-lf-sn-jst-4527065

Angled pin headers, Pin Connector, Board Mount PCB Header, PCB header plug

BM04B Series 1 mm Pitch 4 Position SMT Single Row Top Entry Shrouded Header

[lius2ddlee]

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/interconnect--pin-and-socket-connectors--header-plug-board-mount/df17-2-0-80dp-0-5v-57-hirose-electric-4026245

Pin and Socket Connectors, Socket Connector, receptacle socket, Pin headers

DF17(2.0)-80DP-0.5V(57) DF17 Series 80 Position 0.5 mm Pitch SMT Vertical Header

[addohaislam2000]

Board Mount PCB Header, Wire Housings, Pin headers, Wire Socket Connectors

DT Series 2 Position Single Row Male Pin Grey Automotive Connector

[jmes2fort]

Plug wire, Socket Plug connectors, pin and socket connectors, pin headers

873 Series 6 A 3 Position Push Wire Luminaire Disconnect Connector

[nazoltd]

Buy Yueqing Longsun 35055-10AW-1

[adafruit]

Fruit Jam RP2350B credit-card mini computer with all the fixin's 🍓🍇💾

We were catching up on a recent Hackaday hackchat with Eben Upton (https://hackaday.io/event/202122-raspberry-pi-hack-chat-with-eben-upton) and learned some fun facts: such as the DVI hack for the RP2040 was inspired by a device called the IchigoJam (https://www.hackster.io/news/ichigojam-combines-strawberry-and-raspberry-to-deliver-a-raspberry-pi-pico-powered-educational-micro-66aa5d2f6eec). We remember reading about this back when it was an LPC1114, now it uses an RP2040. Well, we're wrapping up the Metro RP2350 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/6003), and lately, we've been joking around that with DVI output and USB Host support via bit-banged PIO, you could sorta build a little stand-alone computer. Well, one pear-green-tea-fueled-afternoon later we tried our hand at designing a 'credit card sized' computer - that's 3.375" x 2.125", about the same size as a business card (https://hackaday.com/2024/05/07/the-2024-business-card-challenge-starts-now/) and turns out there's even a standard named for it: ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1 (https://www.iso.org/standard/70483.html).

Anyhow, with the extra pins of the QFN-80 RP2350B, we're able to jam a ridonkulous amount of hardware into this shape: RP2350B dual 150MHz Cortex M33 w/ PicoProbe debug port, 16 MB Flash + 8 MB PSRAM, USB type C for bootloading/USB client, Micro SD card with SPI or SDIO, DVI output on the HSTX port, I2S stereo headphone + mono speaker via the TLV320DAC3100 (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/tlv320dac3100irhbt/2353656), 2-port USB type A hub for both keyboard and mouse or game controllers, chunky on-off switch, Stemma QT I2C + Stemma classic JST 3-pin, EYESPI for TFT displays, 5x NeoPixels, 3x tactile switches, and a 16-pin socket header with 10 A/D GPIO + 5V/3V/GND power pins. The PSRAM will help when we want to do things like run emulations that we need to store in fast RAM access, and it will also let us use the main SRAM as the DVI video buffer.

When we get the PCBs back and assembled, what should we try running on this hardware? We're pretty sure it can run DOOM. Should that be first? :) We also need a name. Right now, we're just calling it Fruit Jam since it's inspired by the IchigoJam project.

[foone]

I have an idea for a one-handed game controller, but I have no idea how I'd go about prototyping it. When you make cool tech stuff, how do you build it? Do you have any advice for would-be first-timer technomancers?

It varies a lot from device to device, some of them I make by interfacing with something existing, some of them I design new PCBs for.

Generally the heart of the device will be a microcontroller. I’ve traditionally used the Teensy microcontroller but they’ve sadly died off for my needs. The Raspi Pico seems to be the obvious replacement, and I’m slowly warming up to those.

I recommend getting an RP2040-based microcontroller with headers, a breadboard, and then prototyping on there. You can get some microswitches and jumpers and try some stuff out without first needing to make a PCB.

[techav]

Stepping Backwards a Bit (or 24)

I was looking for a simpler project. My recent 68030 work has been challenging and really pushing the limits of what I can do. I wanted something I could work on, but perhaps where someone else has already worked out the hardest parts.

I find laying out PCBs to be rather relaxing. It's one of those repetitive, almost meditative tasks, like needlepoint or whittling. The kind of hobby where I can turn on some music or a comfortable old TV show, zone out for a few hours, and wake up to this new thing that I created.

Debugging however is very mentally taxing, and the design work required to have a functional schematic to create a PCB for is an active whole-mind prices. So what I really needed was an existing project I could design a board for.

Enter [Grant Searle]. If you're not familiar with [Grant Searle], he has excellent designs for breadboard computers with a very minimal parts count. I studied his minimal Z80 design when I was first starting to build my own computers and learned a lot from it. I highly recommend his work for anyone who is interested in learning how to build their own computer but doesn't know where to start.

I was recently given a Rockwell 6502 CPU pulled from a dead LED marquee. I've never actually worked with 6502, so this seemed like a good time to try building Grant's 8-chip (or 7-chip) 6502 computer.

A few hours later, I had a PCB design completed, gerbers generated, and an order placed. Less than $5 for 5 boards, including shipping. A couple weeks later they arrived in the mail.

I did end up making a few modifications to [Grant]'s design. Instead of a clock circuit made from a discrete crystal and a couple inverter gates, I used a TTL oscillator because I've always found them to be more reliable. I also added support for an FTDI USB Serial adapter chip so that the board can be used with a modern computer as a terminal. And finally, since a PCB is much harder to add new components to relative to a solderless breadboard, I added an expansion header. All of it wrapped up in a compact PCB with lots of helpful silkscreen marking.

I realized after I had ordered the PCBs that the 16kB ROM chips [Grant] used are no longer manufactured or readily available. I have plenty of 8kB EEPROM chips on hand however. Thankfully the OSI BASIC interpreter [Grant] ported to this design fits within 8kB, so I was able to make a few adjustments and re-assemble it to work with the ROM chips I have on hand.

After a small glitch with my EEPROM programmer, it works!

It's quite a change going from my 33MHz+ 68030 to this tiny 6502 running at just under 2MHz. The BASIC text-based Mandelbrot renderer that completes in seconds on my 68030 takes four and a half minutes on the 6502. Not bad at all, considering my bus-impaired 68000 build takes 9 minutes to do the same.

This was a fun little project. It was a nice little break from some of the more difficult projects I've been working on. I have shared the project on GitHub for anyone who might want to take a look.

I hope to have this project with me this weekend, June 14-16, 2024 at Vintage Computer Festival Southwest. I'll be at table 207 in the Tandy Assemble hall, just across the street from the main exhibit hall.

[piratesexmachine420]

For future reference (my own and others), if your TI SilverLink USB cable stops working and starts showing up as "TUSB3410 Boot Device" or similar under device manager (AKA this issue on TI's help page), this is how you can fix it:

Download the TUSB3x10 EEPROM Burner. This is a Windows-only program, but to my knowledge will work on basically any windows machine from XP on -- so long as it's got USB ports. No clue if it'll work in a VM. (You might want to consult this user's manual.)

Download the SilverLink firmware. I got it from here, and compiled it from their de-compilation. It's just a standard 'make' to build. The output file you're looking for is called "ti_graph_link_silver.eep".

Rename "ti_graph_link_silver.eep" to "ti_graph_link_silver.bin".

Open the TUSB3x10 EEPROM Burner, click on the options dropdown and click "Show the 'Program Full Binary Image' button". (page 7 of the manual).

Select the entry under "Computer" labeled "TUSB3410 EEPROM Burner Instance (1.00)".

Set EEPROM size to "64Kb".

Set "File Path" to point to "ti_graph_link_silver.bin". (The renamed .eep, not the original .bin)

I don't know if the VID, PID, Manufacturer string, Product string and Serial # need to be set manually or not with a 'Full Binary Image' burn. Just to be safe, I set VID to 0451, PID to e001, Manufacturer to "Texas Instruments", Product to "TI-GRAPH LINK USB", and checked "Not Serialized"*.

Click the "Program Full Binary Image" button (yellow triangle with the exclamation point), and proceed with the write.

Unplug and re-plug your cable, and it should show up as a SilverLink again!

Additional notes:

The reason that this happens is because the SilverLink cable (revision b, at least) is based on the TUSB3410 microcontroller. That microcontroller's boot process involves checking for an I2C EEPROM containing program code. If it finds that EEPROM and its contents are properly formatted, it'll copy that code into internal RAM and start executing it. If it can't find the EEPROM, or its contents aren't properly formatted, it'll fall back to looking for boot code over USB. Thus: "TUSB3410 Boot Device". Your cable has, in essence, forgotten who it is and and is begging for you to give it a purpose.

The default page-write buffer size (32 bytes) and I2C bus speed (400 KHz) in the burner app are already correct, so no need to change them.

*I don't remember exactly what the Manufacturer string, Product string, or serial number fields were set to pre-corruption. Likewise, no idea about the advanced descriptor options. If someone wants to send the output of lsusb -v -s [whatever their silverlink's bus/id numbers are], I'd really appreciate it!

You might be able to skip the header rigamarole by taking the ti_graph_link_silver.bin file directly ("directly coming from the compiler") -- but I again I don't know exactly what information is in the .eep file and what isn't. Are the PID and VID encoded somewhere in there? I peeked with a hex editor but have no clue. If someone has hardware lying around they're willing to experiment with/potentially brick, I'd love to hear your results!

If you mess up and accidentally forget to do a "Full Binary Image" write, or otherwise brick the firmware, you can force the TUSB3410 to fall back to USB boot mode by opening the plastic shell around the PCB (one Torx screw under the sticker, then just normal plastic tabs) and shorting the right-bottom (Vss) and right-top (SDA), or right-bottom (Vss) and center right-top (SCL) pins of the EEPROM (the chip labeled "24LC64") as you plug it into the USB port. You may need multiple attempts. This works because it temporarily convinces the TUSB3410 that the EEPROM is missing/corrupt, and thus it decides to fall back into USB boot mode -- until you reset it. It might be better to do this with a ~1k resistor instead of a jumper wire, but IDK I'm not an electrical engineer. All I know is that shorting Vss and SDA worked for me. Again, would love feedback.

No clue what causes the corruption in the first place, or how long this fix will last. It might be because the EEPROM's write protect pin is set to "write enable"? It could also just be degrading hardware, for all I know, so no idea how long the fix will last. All I do know is that everything seems nominal right now (immediately after performing this procedure).

[addohaislam2000]

Header plug, Rectangular Connectors, socket connector 2 pin, PCB header plug

Mini-Universal MATE-N-LOK 4 Position Dual Row Through-Hole Right Angle Header

[hyikal]

Prelude - 3

The floodlights began to brighten as minutes ticked by. The lone occupant of the small balcony-turned-workstation looked up, watching the artificial light stream through the metal mesh above her head, and sighed.

Layan Rizk had stayed up all night again… thankfully tomorrow was a weekend.

She stretched her arms, leaning back in her seat before leaning back towards the desk. The PCB she was working on had no eyes to stare back, but the soldered pins glimmered in the dim light nonetheless. She picked it up gingerly, trying to avoid stirring the connections too much. Thankfully she remembered to put on her gloves this time— she couldn't have this board short out and fry the processing chip again. Nujum needed this whip-blade for her breaker training on Sunday, lest she get scolded by the teachers again. Last time that happened, she had come back to the little apartment they shared, crying— and was inconsolable for days.

Layan shook her head, dismissing the image out of her head. She hated seeing her younger sister crying like that. Busying herself with her work again, she took a glance towards her computer, busy flashing something onto a USB drive. The terminal log breezed past, text flying across the screen far too quick for her eyes to comprehend anything past "units" and "gtx_ctrldrive"—

The racing terminal freezes in its tracks. The cursor apologetically blinks at the end of a red line of text.

[USB_MSU61527] Could not install loader – you have held broken packages_

The girl stared at the screen, blue eyes narrowed in confusion. "Wha… broken what now?!"

Layan scrolled up in the log. It had been writing just fine to the drive earlier when she had used it to flash a new bios to the main board, just what was wrong with it? Had the drive finally given out after years of use?

Her phone pings with a message, and she fishes it out of her pocket. With the electrical gloves still on, it doesn't respond to her touch, but she can see she's got a message. Her friend — someone she's met on the Axia xenocryst modding forums — had sent her a picture of a Buuma gauntlet in atrocious shape. The gauntlet in the image looked completely busted, finger compartments bulging, capacitors drenching the boards with now caked-on fluid, wires blackened with electrical overflow. Even without the electrical damage, the gauntlet had holes in it; square edges with the aluminium bursting outward like the blooming petals of a flower. Her friend had captioned the image, too;

fluxnux: look @ what i found in my dads bodydock wastebin

blown axia serie 16 buuma, who wants it

think it belonged to a lcient or smth

cliwnt*

yk what i mean --

Layan quickly typed a response, intrigued enough to forget her own mechanical woes for a second. She exited the installation process and let her PC idle as she looked over the latest offering from Fluxnux, seasoned anonymous xenocryst modder. Most of what Nux gave her tended to be already dead implants, but they were possible to use for parts or, in one bionic arm's case, repairable into test benches. This one was quite a sight however. Layan found herself more intrigued by the story behind this than its capabilities.

rzk81: Holy shit. That's frightening

Is it salvageable?

fluxnux: r u kidding?? total ewaste

wanted a regulator chip off it but no luck. shield headers are still functional somehow and i think u can MAYBE get cords + heatsink + ports off it

but thats it

everything else is either blown or busted.

rzk81: What happened to it?

fluxnux: overcharging

The girl tensely swallowed, that one word sending a shudder through her that definitely wasn't the fault of the cold. She's never seen anyone actually experience an overcharging incident in-person, but she's heard enough horror stories through her older sister, Dani, to know they were caused by overuse of xenocryst equipment.

Seeing the way this buuma was all but torn to pieces, though… it made the fear a lot more present, the danger a lot more tangible. She examined the image a lot more closely as her friend continued typing away. Zooming in, she could see the muted brown of the capacitors, realizing those were made for a Yellow serotype. The blackened parts of the aluminium seemed to spread out from the wrists, like the user had been engulfed in flames… or worse.

She glanced at her own hand, blue ripples of marble shining from underneath her sleeve, running up her palm, and swallowed thickly.

Can't think about that right now.

fluxnux: i think dad got it off a invil

explains y its so fuckin wrecked

probably got into a huge fight lol

An invigilator overcharging? Now that wasn't good. Layan found herself thinking of Dani again, of the invigilators' cadet academy submission forms on her eldest sister's desk, papers of relocation and medical records stapled to them. The worry came to the surface again, and she couldn't help but type out a tense reply to Nux, the sound of idling fans now deafening in her ears.

rzk81: Invigilators have overcharging training though, don't they?

fluxnux: guess yhis one was just stupid ┐⁠(⁠´⁠ー⁠｀⁠)⁠┌

She couldn't help but snort, despite her mounting anxiety.

rzk81: Very classy, Nux.

fluxnux: you want it or not?? dads taking it to the processing center today

rzk81: I do need replacement USB-X ports. Send it over

fluxnux: 👍

btw

hows ur project going

Layan pursed her lips, glancing towards her computer, still idling. The computer continued to hum as she set it to hibernation mode, and Layan rotated the USB stick between her fingers as she read the messages. She let out a tired exhale, leaving her desk as the floodlights came into full power. She'll work on it… tomorrow, but advice in the meantime won't hurt.

rzk81: horrible.

Ever heard of a "you have held broken packages" error?

fluxnux: reinstall dependencies + system updates

should fix it

rzk81: Thanks

fluxnux: whats this hanash for anyway?

never saw anyone attempt shaving a board like this before

challenging urself with a small form factor?

Now on her bed, the girl's blue eyes drifted shut as she thought. Nux knew she was working on something— she had been enjoying their attention to her work and the free tech support that came with it. Guess she should've known it wasn't entirely free.

Still, Nux has been trustworthy so far. Would it truly hurt to actually say what she was working on this whip-blade for? That she was just helping out her younger sister when they didn't have the means for proper equipment, and Dani wouldn't touch any xenocryst tech with a ten foot pole?

She tensely hovered a finger over the message, before steeling her resolve and holding down to reply. They didn't need to know.

If there was anything her parents had taught her, it was that she couldn't trust anyone in Amon.

rzk81: You can call it a commission I guess.

fluxnux: damn get that bread

gl

Despite her better judgement, Layan found herself smiling, if just a little.

…she would be lying if she said Nux wasn't growing on her.

[taperwolf]

Good news: the PCB bus boards for my new Eurorack case came today!

Bad news: building and installing all of them requires 54 of the little 16-pin box headers, and I only actually have 10 on hand. And while I could order them, I really shouldn't until more money comes in, around about Friday.

At any rate, also included in the shipment were a couple of simple modules from Sourcery Studios: their ASMR (A Simple Mixer, Right?) five-channel mixer and their POW module, which provides power LEDs for each rail, a box header for plugging in modules for testing, and a USB-A jack for powering things from the 5V rail. (It also has a switch I won't be using, as it's meant for a different power setup than the one I'm using.) So I'll probably build those before I get to the actual case build.