DIP – Blog. by Next Thing https://ntcblogbackup.wpengine.com News & Notes. Process & Projects. No BS. Srsly. Thu, 09 Nov 2017 03:16:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.5 Community Made: a C.H.I.P. Book, a DIY Telephone Switch, & a MicroSD DIP for PocketC.H.I.P. https://ntcblogbackup.wpengine.com/community-made-a-c-h-i-p-book-a-diy-telephone-switch-a-microsd-dip-for-pocketc-h-i-p/ https://ntcblogbackup.wpengine.com/community-made-a-c-h-i-p-book-a-diy-telephone-switch-a-microsd-dip-for-pocketc-h-i-p/#comments Thu, 08 Sep 2016 17:45:11 +0000 http://blog.nextthing.co/?p=982 Enough DIPs to make a stand!

Enough DIPs to make a stand! JKW’s Queso, and new TzatzikiDIP attached to C.H.I.P. & PocketC.H.I.P.

Another week, another batch of awesome C.H.I.P and PocketC.H.I.P. projects from the community. And this week there’s an extra special surprise –Neil Kolban released a C.H.I.P. book!

If you’re working on a cool project, make sure to share it with the community. And don’t feel like you have to wait to share until the project is finished. A lot of great collaboration is taking place in the forum and it’s the perfect place to brainstorm your next build.

Kolban’s Big Book on C.H.I.P.!

kolban

Neil Kolban’s Book on C.H.I.P. is exactly what it sounds like: an entire book devoted to C.H.I.P.! It’s available from leanpub.com, a publishing platform that lets customers name their price for DRM-free technical books, though show a little love a pay a bit for the book. After all, the suggested price is only $4.99! (ง ͡ʘ ͜ʖ ͡ʘ)ง

Kolban’s book is a great read for any noob, and a handy reference for the seasoned 1337 chipster. Spanning 261 pages this book has a ton of great content. Beginning with the basics like Linux commands and an overview of C.H.I.P.’s hardware, the chapters gradually increase in complexity at a nice rate that won’t leave you in the dust. By the end of the book, you’ll be integrating all sorts of sensors and accessory boards with C.H.I.P. and controlling how they respond to sensory input with a variety of programming languages and frameworks: C, Javascript, Johnny-Five, and Node.js.

In my view, the book really shines when Kolban explains how to wire C.H.I.P. to other components and accessory boards. He covers quite an array of add-ons, but below are my favorites.

  • Controlling Neopixels
  • Adding an external Analog-to-Digital converter
  • Reading data from an accelerometer and gyroscope

And that’s just scratching the surface. Kolban’s book is jam packed with tons of great C.H.I.P. content to explore. Make sure to swing on by his site and get a copy of his book!


If You Know Your Party’s Extension…

catcallcenter

If you’ve ever wanted to set up a telephone network for a small business or construct a massive call center for fun and profit, ASF’s forum post is the place to start your journey.

Covering the installation basics, ASF explains how to get Asterisk, an extremely popular telephone switch software package that’s used by small businesses and enormous Fortune 500 companies, running on C.H.I.P.. Plus, you’ll also learn how to install FreePBX, a graphical frontend to help configure Asterisk to make your life easier.

The Asterisk project originates from 1999. Mark Spencer was running a successful commercial Linux support call center and wanted to increase capacity. But after shopping around for a corporate solution, he discovered they were exorbitantly expensive. Spencer figured it couldn’t be that hard to build his own and two years later he and his company were exclusively developing Asterisk.

ASF guides you through the tricky spots of the setup on C.H.I.P., and gives some good tips along the way, like reminding you to open ports on your router for voice traffic! Whatever your reason might be to run your own telephone switch, ASF’s post is the place to start. And if you run into trouble, don’t be shy, ask your questions on the forum!


This Tzatziki DIP isn’t Just for C.H.I.P.s

The Tzatziki DIP adds a microSD card slot to C.H.I.P. or PocketC.H.I.P.

The Tzatziki DIP adds a microSD card slot to C.H.I.P. or PocketC.H.I.P.

JKW has done it again! He’s created another DIP, this time a microSD card DIP called Tzatziki. Tzatziki works with C.H.I.P. and is one of the first DIPs that is also designed to fit on PocketC.H.I.P. and stay low-profile.

Rather than having header pins like most DIPs, Tzatziki takes advantage of smaller-than-normal drill holes in the PCB to pressure fit around PocketC.H.I.P.’s male header pins. Getting the fit just right took JKW a couple of tries. If the contact isn’t snug, the electrical connection between the two devices is unreliable. But if the contact is too tight, it’s nearly impossible to install on PocketC.H.I.P.. Precision is everything!

Tzatziki uses a snug grip to connect to PocketC.H.I.P.

Tzatziki uses a snug grip to connect to PocketC.H.I.P.

And since Tzatziki isn’t too thick, C.H.I.P. fits over it without adding much bulk to PocketC.H.I.P.. Think of it like a PocketC.H.I.P., Tzatziki, C.H.I.P. sandwich. (But remember, don’t eat C.H.I.P. or PocketC.H.I.P.!)

Longtime Chipsters will know the forum handle JKW. A while back, we featured 5 of his DIP designs and he’s been busy ever since. He’s constantly improving and adding to his buffet of DIPs. You can learn all about the Tzatziki and all the rest of JKW’s DIPs on his site and in the forums.


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If you’re working on a cool C.H.I.P. or PocketC.H.I.P. project, don’t forget to share your progress with the community in the forum and on twitter!

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C.H.I.P.s & DIPs: 5 New Community Accessory Boards https://ntcblogbackup.wpengine.com/c-h-i-p-dips-5-new-community-accessory-boards/ Thu, 19 May 2016 13:00:40 +0000 http://blog.nextthing.co/?p=496 Spinach you'll want to have!

Look closely behind the Spinach DIP and all its spinachy goodness and you’ll spot C.H.I.P.!

A few weeks ago Kolja Windeler’s Queso DIP was featured in a blog post. Queso connects to C.H.I.P. and adds four additional USB ports, plus handles power.

But Queso is not the only DIP JKW, as he’s known on the forums, is working on. He currently has five more DIPs in development! Make sure to use the forums and let JKW know if you have questions about his awesome new DIPs!

DIPs are add-on boards for C.H.I.P. that connect directly to it and expand its functionality. A good DIP design doesn’t add every possible feature all in one board, but focuses on adding one or two new features. That’s why there are so many different DIPs starting to appear on the forums –each DIP is meant to specialize.


Enough DIPs for a Party

menu

DIP Menu created by JKW

Salsa DIP brings realtime control to C.H.I.P., which is great for controlling motors and blinking lights. The awesome four-wheel drive vehicle in the video below is powered by C.H.I.P. and Salsa DIP.


Onion DIP has a built-in relay, which is great for controlling external devices and it also includes a small prototyping area for wiring up your own custom circuit. It’s a bit like the Relay DIP that Gus created for my RocketC.H.I.P. project.

(Thanks to iot_steve from the forums for pointing out that the Onion DIP does have a realtime clock.)

Onion DIP rendered in circuit design software.

Onion DIP rendered in circuit design software.


Spinach DIP is filled with 32 powerful, multicolored LEDs that are controllable directly from C.H.I.P.. The video below shows a C.H.I.P. and Spinach DIP in action, but it’s extremely bright and difficult to see the boards. Scroll to the top of the page for a more clear image of the Spinach DIP.


Guacamole DIP is still in the works, but it’s designed to take a digital audio source and convert the output to an analog signal. From the listener’s perspective, the analog signal is a much more rich, full sound compared to the digital signal.

This conversion is actually done by a specialized component known as a digital-to-analog converter or DAC for short. If you’re interested in a more detailed explanation of how a DAC works, check out this site.


Not in WiFi range? No problem. The Hummus DIP provides a wired ethernet connector for C.H.I.P.. Believe it or not, there are actually some projects where having a wired ethernet connection, not WiFi, is a must.

A good example are DIY cluster computers, where multiple boards are wired together to cooperatively perform computational tasks at very high speeds. Since each board needs to quickly communicate with the others, wired connections are the preferred data transport method.

Hummus DIP provides wired ethernet to C.H.I.P.

Hummus DIP provides wired ethernet to C.H.I.P.

Community DIPs

These DIPs are all community created, so you won’t find them anywhere but the forums. Thanks to their open source hardware design, the files and tools are available for you to make your own. If you’re looking for more info on any of the DIPs in this post, just click the included links and ask questions in the forum.

Stay current on all the DIPs by checking the community run wiki. While you’re browsing, make sure to check out the C.H.I.P.sters’ projects and hardware hacks over on Hackster.io.

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