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 A reel of ADuM4160s
I’m pleased to announce that the long wait is finally over – I’m now in possession of a reel (this is 1000 pcs!) of ADuM4160 – the core chip of USB Isolator. I will be shipping back orders today and tomorrow – if you have ordered any of USB Isolator products from me in February, March, or April, and will not have gotten shipping notification by Monday, please contact me.
USB Isolators are back in stock. By popular demand, I also started selling ADuM4160 in single quantities – look in components section of the store.
On a side note, I received an e-mail from a company in Denmark offering ADuM4160-based USB Isolators in “complete” form – sporting a nice looking case and bus-powered supply for the peripheral side. I bought one yesterday to take a look. I’m going to write a review and, if I like it, start reselling it.
Oleg.
 USB Isolator Board Solder Stencil I received a batch of solder paste stencils for my USB Isolator PCB. Now those who want to try low-tech reflow soldering technique, can do it. Stencils are laser cut by Ohararp from 0.0035″ Kapton. They are now offered for sale at the store.
 USB Isolator parts Immediately after announcing USB Isolator circuit I received several suggestions to put together a parts kit. Indeed, users of such devices are usually not afraid of small parts and generally aware of which side of soldering iron is better suited for holding on to. Also, I’m having hard time trying to find a supplier, where one can buy all the parts to build this circuit; usually, you need to buy from 2-3 suppliers, which significantly adds to shipping expenses. Considering this, I’m now offering not one, but two parts kits to build an USB Isolator based on Analog Devices’ ADuM4160.
The kits are added to “ADuM4160 USB Isolator bare PCB and kits” dropdown. One kit contains all the parts necessary to build an isolator – PCB, ADum4160, capacitors, resistors, USB connectors, pin headers, and jumpers and costs $25. Another kits contains all that plus all parts for 5V buck converter – LT1376-5, inductor, caps, etc and costs $33. Enjoy!
I’m not writing a build manual at this time; I’d like to get some feedback from builders first. Any questions you have, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Oleg.
 Four configurations in Arduino blue
Arduino USB Host Shields are in the store. If you are not yet familiar with the project, please browse “USB Shield” category of the site and read the articles. In short, the purpose of this shield is to add USB Host interface capability to Arduino. The software libraries for this shield currently support control and bulk-in transfers, while bulk-out transfer is in the works. Access to GPIO pins of MAX3421E is also supported. Sketch examples, demonstrating USB device control queries and polling USB keyboard, are published. More code will be developed in the future.
At present, four configurations of the shield are available. The first one, called “Minimal”, contains USB core components only. It is compatible with 3.3V Arduinos, such as Arduino Pro from Sparkfun. Also, since no 5V is available, only communication with self-powered devices is possible. Moreover, not every self-powered device would work in this configuration. For unknown reasons, some external hard drives refused to answer until VBUS voltage was raised to 5V. On the other hand, all printers and digital cameras that I and several beta-testers tried worked fine as well as other people’s external hard drives. “Minimal” configuration is the best one for battery-powered projects since 3.3V Arduinos consume less electricity.
Continue reading USB Host Shield in store.
 MAX3421E on a tray
I just took delivery on a batch of MAX3421Es from Maxim. They are available for sale in the store for $8.00.
The MAX3421E makes the vast collection of USB peripherals available to any microprocessor, ASIC, or DSP when it operates as a USB host. For point-to-point solutions, for example, a USB keyboard or mouse interfaced to an embedded system, the firmware that operates the MAX3421E can be simple since only a targeted device is supported.
This controller is supported by open source firmware that I’m developing for 8-bit microcontrollers, including PIC18s and Arduino.
 MAX3421E breakout boards
First batch of MAX3421E arrived today, three days ahead of schedule, from PCBcart. The quality is good. It’s now for sale in my store, price $8.50.
In a week, I will be selling main Maxim parts for this board, as well as less exotic components, such as 12MHz quartz crystals and USB A connectors. If you want to get notified when it happens, send me an e-mail. In the mean time, you can try to go sample route :-), Maxim is known to be generous, at least to US residents.
[Update] I now have MAX3421Es for sale, price $8.00.
 Populated PIC-80 breakouts
A year ago, I needed to prototype a design which used PIC18F8722. It’s a nice microcontroller with plenty of ROM, RAM, and peripherals. It comes in 80 pin 0.5mm pitch TQFP package. To use it in prototyping, I designed breakout board which holds the micro, crystal, and filter and decupling capacitors. With time, I changed the layout to accommodate other PICs in the same package and recently made a variant which takes any 80-pin PIC in TQFP-80 package in production, at the time of this writing. This includes:
- older PIC18Fs
- newer J-series PIC18s
- “Classic” dsPIC30
- J-series dsPICs
- PIC24s
Continue reading TQFP-80 breakout board for Microchip PICs.
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