Hey everyone,
Just wanted to get the news out about a year end sale starting today and running until 1/2/2014.
I will have stock of backordered items ready early next week with some more PCBs and parts on the way to support more orders on the Leo line and the new boards! as an FYI, I have plenty of Miniphs so if you need them in bulk let me know!
Just spent the morning updating inventories and getting everything ready for a Cyber Monday sale on here and over at my Tindie store as well! Most items are at elast 10% off with many at 15% MinipH is 15% and is a very popular item, you can even buy them in bulk over at tindie plus 15% off! (I am just about to build another large bulk batch of 150 again, and to think it was only a few months ago I had to build the last batch!)
head on over to the store and see if there is anything you like! P.S I will be adding a couple other products towards the end of the day! http://www.sparkyswidgets.com/shop/
Well its been a while since I started working on getting a LeoPhi and a WR-703N working together, I had too many other loose ends to finish before I finally got around to actually starting on this. I left off getting OpenWRT flashed onto the router and a quick setup. Getting the firmware on the router is pretty trivial, but setting it up to work with the USB port and serial takes a bit of work. I plan on making a detailed write up on it but wanted to leave a little hint post.
The gist of it is when working with the Leo line of sensors is to install and enable kmod-usb-acm (pretty much the core USB ones too even kmod-usb2 for 2.0 hub support) I actually had better luck using the newer version of OpenWRT and LuCi instead of sshing in via CLI. I then configured the start up file to run ser2net as a test via the -C switch per each USB device connected.
The key to the routers configuration is to set it up as a wifi client with a IP addressing scheme similar to the host network, but to keep the LAN side on a different “hosts” portion (basically the xxx.xxx.1.xxx portion of the IP). This way we can easily configure the router from inside the LAN should something fail in configuration. I also configured WAN administration since technically the wan would be a client to an existing network!
The WR703N and LeoPhi hack is proving to be a really handy hack so far, and I am working on a full blown article and a video as well! Stay tuned!
Galvanically Isolate any I2C peripheral with this breakout!
I just finished building an initial batch and am very pleased after testing. The voltage output selection between 3.3 and 5v works great and the output is pretty stable! Most importantly it isolates the I2C unit it plug into. The single supply aspect works really well, and makes this a simple drop in series placement between host and I2C device. If you need to use a separate external supply for the I2C device to isolate, simple disable the power IC with the selection jumper (you can leave it open to enable the pin for external selection control). Anyway, here’s a bit more infor below and don’t forget to check out the project page!
So why would I need something like this
There are many times when it is important to prove galvanic I2C isolation. I2C is a very popular method of communication and is growing is use all the time, it is easy to use and allows a vast array of peripherals and can be somewhat fast at that. It does have some weaknesses and when paired with sensors that are susceptible to noise can present issues (poor design, ground loops, too much capacitance, are example of some of the problems). One method to some of these problems should the crop up is to use galvanic isolation to separate out the “sensitive” portions from the other.
You can also place more than one of the same address on the bus and use SDL switching to block the non preferred device to access. There are a large number of reason why one would need to do this!
With a wide input voltage range and selectable output this unit is a natural level shifter
I2C level conversion can be very difficult especially at higher speeds (400Khz and 1Mhz can be problematic). One of the cool side effect of the I2C isolation breakout is how natural it lends itself to level conversion, it is really handy when you use an external power supply and operate at potentials much higher than the host would be at.
Welp, with the demand steadily growing for the MinipH units its time for another large batch run!
I thought I would share a couple pictures and maybe talk about the process a bit but thats for another project log!
for now enjoy the eyecandy of the Lovely OSHPark boards!
