MightyOhm

Jan Wante made this gorgeous Wifi Radio with a modern look. It is based on my original Wifi Radio tutorials.

Not content to simply duplicate my work, he added a few creative twists of his own, including a custom handmade case made of alucobond, MDF, and real wood veneer that gives his finished radio a nice, modern look. Inside, a hacked WL-520gU wireless router running OpenWrt runs the show and an ATmega microcontroller programmed with BASCOM interfaces with a rotary encoder and graphical LCD display.

The very impressive result is shown in this video:

Nice work, Jan!

Thanks to John, of the ATX Hackerspace, who loaned me his Arduino for testing, the HV Rescue Shield now works with the Arduino Mega.

I had to create new byte read/write functions for digital lines 0-7 because they are implemented very “differently” (and I don’t mean that in a good way) in the hardware for the Mega.  If you’re interested in how I did this, check out the new version 2.12 Arduino sketch and the new mega_data_read and mega_data_write functions.

To use the HV Rescue Shield with the Arduino, first download the revised sketch here.  Set the MEGA #define to 1 and compile/upload the sketch to your board.  Make sure you have the Arduino Mega selected in the Arduino Board menu, or the sketch won’t compile.

The Mega has more pin headers than the Rescue Shield, so be sure to install the shield all the way to the left, as shown here:

If you experience any problems with the HV Rescue Shield and the Arduino Mega, please report them in the support forum.

I’m happy to announce that I have again been given the privilege of co-hosting The Amp Hour, this time with Dave Jones of the EEVblog!   Chris Gammell is away this week recruiting bright young engineers into slavery to join his company, so I was given the guest spot.  This is my third time on the show.

If you haven’t heard of it before, The Amp Hour is “an off-the-cuff radio show and podcast for electronics enthusiasts and professionals.”  I listen most every week and would recommend it to anyone who wants to hear a humorous and off-beat take on electronics engineering.

Check out Episode 29 – DJ and Jazzy Jeff and all the rest of the episodes at The Amp Hour.

I have good news.  The latest and greatest version of the HV Rescue Shield is now available!

Version 2.1 contains a new and improved 12V switching circuit that resolves an issue reading/writing to parts with certain startup timer settings.  This issue affects all previous versions of the Rescue Shield kit.

I have kits in stock and ready to ship this week.  If you have been waiting for the new release, you can place an order now.

Note to HV Rescue Shield 2.0 customers: Because the startup timer issue was identified so quickly after version 2.0 was released, I am offering a free upgrade for all customers who purchased a version 2.0 kit.  Please contact me to arrange for a replacement.  This offer only applies to HV Rescue Shield 2.0 customers.

A quick update on the HV Rescue Shield:

About a week ago, I completed testing on a new switching circuit that allows me to leave the DC-DC converter on full-time and switch the RESET signal very quickly (risetimes in the microseconds).   Now there shouldn’t be any more  issues getting parts with zero SUT to enter HVSP/HVPP mode.

It’s taken a lot longer than I expected to get to this point, but the results look very good. I have had 100% success reading/writing all parts I have tested.

PCBs are on order and due to ship by the end of the week.  Assuming the layout is good and I didn’t just order a large batch of stylish (but small) coasters, I should have kits in stock again by the end of next week.

Watch here for updates, and my apologies to everyone who has been waiting on a kit – new and improved kits should be available soon.

Update 2/1: PCBs came in while I was away last week, and are currently being held at my local Fedex office, which is closed due to the power outages that are affecting Austin today.  Apparently Austin does not handle prolonged sub-freezing temperatures very well.   As soon as I can get my hands on the boards, it should only be a day or two before kits are available again.