DIY USB-Gadgets (Arduino-like and under £3)

Google Groups
1

I’ve just seen this post. May be of interest to some of you?

Rgds,

Jon ““The Nice Guy”” Spriggs LPIC-1 Certified
This message was sent from my mobile device. Please excuse any top posting
and typos that may occur as a result.---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: “G Bulmer” gbulmer@gmail.com
Date: Jul 19, 2009 11:51 AM
Subject: [birmingham-hack-space] DIY USB-Gadgets (Arduino-like and under £3)
To: “Birmingham Hack Space” birmingham-hack-space@googlegroups.com

Folks may have seen this before, but just-in-case …

V-USB was called AVR-USB (but they changed their name to avoid
trademark problems):

It is a very low-cost way to make USB gadgets using Atmel 8-bit AVR
micro-controllers (i.e. things that are compatible with the Arduino).

I think a basic USB gadget could be made for well under £3 (I’ll make
up a basket of parts when I get time).

The software is free for Open Source projects.
(You can pay a license fee and sell stuff too.)

There are a list of ‘reference projects’ showing how to make various
gadgets:
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/prjobdev.html

The PowerSwitch and EasyLogger examples don’t need a PCB. They’re
built on veroboard/matrixboard, so it would be relatively
straightforward to get started.

The host PC thinks EasyLogger is a USB keyboard, so there are no
drivers or other software. Plug it in, and it should look like a
keyboard, typing one character/second.
(I don’t know how much testing they do, but they have some examples on
Windows and ‘Unix’, i.e. Linux and Mac).

There are a lot of community projects:


full list:
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/prjall.html

One example, PowerSwitch, show how to make a USB-gadget using an
ATtiny2313.
PowerSwitch has relays to switch power to 8 things. (NB this is so old
the circuit predates the ATtiny2313 part number)

ATtiny2313 is available from, for example, Rapid who sell it for
£1.10+VAT:
http://www.rapidonline.com/Electronic-Components/Integrated-Circuits/Atmel-Microcontrollers/ATtiny-8-bit-AVR-Microcontrollers/77049/kw/ATtiny+8-bit+AVR+Micro-controllers

Handily, Rapid sell ATtiny2313 in both DIL (breadboard friendly) and
surface mount.
It has 20 pins, so it could be connected to quite a lot of things.

When I get around to it, I’ll make something as an experiment for
school children.
I think it’d be rather cool to show kids how to make USB add-ons for
themselves.
I’d make it run independently of the host PC, to show that it is a
fully operational computer system.

It suffers the usual problem; it needs an in-circuit programmer to
program it. But they are pretty cheap, and I have one.

For anyone interested, this might be good practice, and a step to a
DIY Arduino.

HTH
GB-)

2

AVR was something I was very interested in (driven in the main by
http://test-www.vandenbrande.com/wp/?page_id=15 ) . But since everyone
locally was talking about arduinos I had to a large extent stopped looking
at em :slight_smile:

I’ve just seen this post. May be of interest to some of you?

Rgds,

–
Jon ““The Nice Guy”” Spriggs LPIC-1 Certified
This message was sent from my mobile device. Please excuse any top posting
and typos that may occur as a result.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: “G Bulmer” gbulmer@gmail.com
Date: Jul 19, 2009 11:51 AM
Subject: [birmingham-hack-space] DIY USB-Gadgets (Arduino-like and under
£3)
To: “Birmingham Hack Space” birmingham-hack-space@googlegroups.com

Folks may have seen this before, but just-in-case …

V-USB was called AVR-USB (but they changed their name to avoid
trademark problems):
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html

It is a very low-cost way to make USB gadgets using Atmel 8-bit AVR
micro-controllers (i.e. things that are compatible with the Arduino).

I think a basic USB gadget could be made for well under £3 (I’ll make
up a basket of parts when I get time).

The software is free for Open Source projects.
(You can pay a license fee and sell stuff too.)

There are a list of ‘reference projects’ showing how to make various
gadgets:
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/prjobdev.html

The PowerSwitch and EasyLogger examples don’t need a PCB. They’re
built on veroboard/matrixboard, so it would be relatively
straightforward to get started.

The host PC thinks EasyLogger is a USB keyboard, so there are no
drivers or other software. Plug it in, and it should look like a
keyboard, typing one character/second.
(I don’t know how much testing they do, but they have some examples on
Windows and ‘Unix’, i.e. Linux and Mac).

There are a lot of community projects:
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/projects.html
full list:
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/prjall.html

One example, PowerSwitch, show how to make a USB-gadget using an
ATtiny2313.
PowerSwitch has relays to switch power to 8 things. (NB this is so old
the circuit predates the ATtiny2313 part number)

ATtiny2313 is available from, for example, Rapid who sell it for
£1.10+VAT:

http://www.rapidonline.com/Electronic-Components/Integrated-Circuits/Atmel-Microcontrollers/ATtiny-8-bit-AVR-Microcontrollers/77049/kw/ATtiny+8-bit+AVR+Micro-controllers

Handily, Rapid sell ATtiny2313 in both DIL (breadboard friendly) and
surface mount.
It has 20 pins, so it could be connected to quite a lot of things.

When I get around to it, I’ll make something as an experiment for
school children.
I think it’d be rather cool to show kids how to make USB add-ons for
themselves.
I’d make it run independently of the host PC, to show that it is a
fully operational computer system.

It suffers the usual problem; it needs an in-circuit programmer to
program it. But they are pretty cheap, and I have one.

For anyone interested, this might be good practice, and a step to a
DIY Arduino.

HTH
GB-)

3

Well, Arduino can be just a good introduction to AVR as they run on AVR
chips - the ATMega328 on newer boards like the Duemilanove, and the
ATMega168 on older boards like the Diecimila. It’s probably also one of
the easiest ways to get an AVR dev environment, as avr-gcc and avrdude
(the download tool) are part of the Arduino distribution.

Adrian.

Ciaran wrote:

4

Well, before I started looking into hackspaces, I too was interested
in programming microcontrollers (although I was looking at PICs,
mainly because the company I worked for used them). I think the
Arduino is brilliant, but is sometimes used like a hammer to crack a
nut. So although I fully intend to play with Arduinos and make cool
things with them, I intend to go beyond that into using pure
microcontrollers as well.

5

I’m a very AVR centric guy, My MicroMouse robot is atmega128 based and the
usb rotary keyboard uses an attiny45 with v-usb. If anyone needs a hand or
advice about avr stuff, give me a shout :slight_smile:

Bob2009/7/20 Tallscreen madstunts@googlemail.com

Well, before I started looking into hackspaces, I too was interested
in programming microcontrollers (although I was looking at PICs,
mainly because the company I worked for used them). I think the
Arduino is brilliant, but is sometimes used like a hammer to crack a
nut. So although I fully intend to play with Arduinos and make cool
things with them, I intend to go beyond that into using pure
microcontrollers as well.