Tag Archives: adafruit

Microcontrollers, Projects

Fixed USBTinyISP drivers for 64-bit Windows 7 / Vista x64

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For some time now, those wanting to use the Adafruit Industries USBTinyISP with the 64-bit versions of Windows 7 or Vista were faced with the following errors when attempting to install the device drivers supplied by Adafruit:

For some reason, the 32-bit versions of these operating systems don’t prevent the unsigned drivers from being installed, although they do complain.

There are a few workarounds that involve hacking Windows or disabling digital signature checking, but thanks to a tip by user wayneft on the Adafruit support forums, I was able to make the process much more straightforward.

The USBTiny drivers are based on libusb-win32.  Based on some notes I found on the libusb-win32 wiki, I discovered that the latest libusb drivers contain a proper digital signature:

Vista/7 64 bit are supported from version 1.2.0.0 since a Microsoft KMCS accepted digital signature is embedded in the kernel driver libusb0.sys. libusb-win32 based device drivers can also be submitted for Microsoft WHQL testing. Several companies have successfully finished the WHQL testing with their libusb-win32 based driver package. This will allow the customers to install the driver without a warning under current 32bit/64bit Windows.

This is good news!

I downloaded the latest version of libusb-win32 (1.2.1.0) and used the included inf-wizard tool to create new drivers for the USBTinyISP:

usbtinyisp_libusb-win32_1.2.1.0

I used the Windows device manager to upgrade the broken drivers on my Windows 7 64-bit machine.  There is still a warning that “Windows can’t verify the publisher of this driver software” but there are no more errors about digital signatures and the new drivers appear to install and work correctly.

I haven’t done a huge amount of testing with the drivers, but I was able to communicate with the USBTiny via avrdude and flash a simple program to an AVR.   I also haven’t tested this fix on Vista, as I don’t have access to a computer running it.  If anyone tests these drivers on Vista x64, please post your results in the comments!

Electronics, Kits, Microcontrollers

Kit Building Party Photos & Video

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This weekend I hosted a post-Halloween kit building party at MightyOhm HQ.

Nine close friends built Conway’s Game of Life kits from Adafruit Industries.  This is my favorite kit for these kinds of workshops because it’s easy for beginners to complete in about 2 hours, and when everyone is done, you can wire all of the kits together to create one large cellular automata display.  The last time I helped people build this kit was at a Make:SF workshop at the TechShop in Menlo Park.

Here’s a timelapse video of the afternoon, shot with a Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam on an Eee PC 4G running Booru Webcam 2.0.

The capture interval was 5 seconds.  I used Quicktime Pro to stitch the images together at 15fps and iMovie to add titles and music (Turbo Outrun by FRP from remix.kwed.org.)

I wore my Halloween costume for most of the afternoon.  What am I?  Most people on the streets of San Francisco had no idea…

Kit Building Party

Safety first!
Kit Building Party

Stuart was the first to finish his kit:
Kit Building Party

Soldering the kits together to form the matrix:
Kit Building Party

Nine happy kit-builders with the 3×3 matrix they created with their finished kits:
Kit Building Party

And lastly, a video of the 3×3 matrix in action:

Three people had little to no soldering experience at the beginning of the afternoon.  Everyone who came went home with a working kit.  Success!

Electronics, Projects

Wifi Radio Cost Breakdown

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Many people have asked me for a cost breakdown of my Wifi Radio project.  Well, here it is!

I added a link to possible sources for as many parts as I could.  However, there were a few things I scrounged from local surplus electronics stores and couldn’t easily find a good equivalent online.  I’m not expecting everyone to copy my design exactly (not everyone has a woodworking shop at their disposal), so use these numbers as a rough estimate only.

If you shop around you should be able to beat the listed prices on many items, so I see this as sort of a worst case scenario.

To flash the wireless router and create a minimal radio (with no user interface), you will need:

Total: $65.48

To make the LCD display and tuner interface, you’ll also need:

Total: $52.06

(This is on the high end, the interface can certainly be built for less by using scrounged/surplus components.)

To make the finished radio, add:

  • Volume and tune knobs – ~$2 @ HSC
  • Cool tuner knob – $8.55
  • 5V/12V power supply brick – $10 @ Weird Stuff
  • 5-pin mini-DIN power connector – ~$3 @ HSC
  • Power switch – ~$1 @ HSC
  • Cheap set of PC speakers (gutted for the speakers and amplifier) – $5 @ Weird Stuff

Total: $29.55

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot…

  • An awesome friend named Tony with a full woodworking shop in his garage who will make you a killer wooden enclosure for free – $priceless

Grand total (excluding the box) – $147.09

If you take out the cost of the development tools, namely the FTDI cable and the USBtinyISP, the total comes out to $105 (without the box).

By scrounging materials and using parts from your junkbox you should be able to reduce that figure even more, but obviously the grand total hinges on what kind of enclosure you use.  Not everyone has a friend with serious woodworking skills willing to donate time and materials, but use this as an excuse to get creative.

I wanted a box that showcased the time and effort that I spent on the electronics inside, but that doesn’t mean an old boombox from the Salvation Army couldn’t work just as well.

When I first started this project, my goal was to keep the total parts cost under $100.  On paper, it looks like I came pretty close to that, thanks to the donated box and excluding the reusable development tools like the FTDI cable and AVR programmer.  To be honest, I probably spent twice that amount on spare power supplies, extra knobs, a second router to bring to NOTACON, and a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t end up using in the final project.  But I’m pretty ok with that.  I think this just highlights the fact that:

If you just want a Wifi Radio, it will always be cheaper to buy one off the shelf. But if you make your own, it will be infinitely more rewarding.

It certainly has been for me.  🙂