Minimus AVR USB dev boards at £2.50 each!

[Chris McClelland]

I just noticed that ModTraders are selling Minimus AVR USB dev boards
at £2.50 each for 100+ quantities:

http://www.modtraders.co.uk/minimus-avr-usb-development-board.html

Basically it's an Atmel AT90USB162 on a PCB with a 16MHz crystal, a
RESET and HWB button, a couple of LEDs and a USB type A plug. The
microcontroller has 16KiB of flash (12KiB if you want to keep the
factory-programmed USB bootloader intact), 512 bytes of RAM, 512 bytes
of EEPROM, a Full-Speed (12Mbit/s) device-only USB peripheral with 176
bytes of endpoint FIFO space, an analog comparator, a couple of
timers, a UART, a master/slave SPI, 21 I/Os and an on-chip 3.3v
regulator. With a bit of hackery you can get it to work at +5v or
+3.3v, taking power either from an external source or from the USB
bus. The I/Os are brought out to a 0.1"-pitch DIL arrangement, so it's
great for prototyping. It runs many of Dean Camera's LUFA[1] examples.

I bought a few several weeks ago and have found them to be extremely
useful:

http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?cat=34

Anyone interested in clubbing together to buy 100 of them? I can
probably justify buying 30 or 40 for myself, but more than that starts
looking like serious squirrel-mania.

Chris

[1] http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php

[Charles Yarnold]

Put me down for 10, they are handy buggers.

Sol

[Tim Storey]

I'll have 10 as well

\t

On 07/02/2012 19:52, Charles Yarnold wrote:
> Put me down for 10, they are handy buggers.
>
> Sol
>
> On 7 February 2012 19:27, Chris McClelland <googl...@m3.ath.cx

[M]

10 for me too :)

--
>
++++++++++[>+>+++>++
+++++>++++++++++<<<<
-]>>>+++++++.>++++++
+++++.+++..---------
.++++++++++.<<+++.<.

[Matte]

Could I have 10 plx?

[Paul Dart]

I'll have 4 (as it nicely makes £10).

I have made a wiki page to stop excess mailing list +1.

http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Minimus

Cheers,

Paul

[Anish]

+10 :)
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

[Nigel Worsley]

> I just noticed that ModTraders are selling Minimus AVR USB dev boards
> at �2.50 each for 100+ quantities:

Those boards are crying out to have this code put in them: http://macetech.com/blog/?q=node/46

At that price they are disposable, so need to worry about getting them back after the prank :)

I could probably make use of a few...

Nigle

[Bob Clough]

I'll take 10 if someone can post them to manchester!

[Andrzej Bieniek]

Hi,

Well spotted!

There is also 32kB flash version for £4 each in 100 quantities.
http://www.modtraders.co.uk/minimus-32-avr-usb-development-board.html

Andrzej

[M]

any real benefit to go with 32bit and more space?

--

[Andrzej Bieniek]

(based on the above link)
Name is a bit misleading. It is still 8bit, it has more flash, RAM and
eeprom memory.
http://www.atmel.com/devices/ATMEGA32U2.aspx

Andrzej

[M]

oops my bad, thanks :D

[Monty]

Can put me down for 10

[Jasper Wallace]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2012, Chris McClelland wrote:

> I just noticed that ModTraders are selling Minimus AVR USB dev boards
> at £2.50 each for 100+ quantities:
>
> http://www.modtraders.co.uk/minimus-avr-usb-development-board.html

This kind of thing will be good food for the vending machine.

--
[http://pointless.net/] [0x2ECA0975]

[tom]

I've done exactly that with them, LUFA is pretty easy to use
actually.

They can also pretend to be mass storage devices too :)

I'll go in for 4

[Chris McClelland]

What a great response!

I will place the order at 4pm today, using the state of Paul's twiki
at that time, so if you want in on the order, make sure your name is
down.

http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Minimus

Assuming they arrive in time, I will bring them to the hackspace on
Tuesday evening. Please bring cash, or send a proxy with cash.
Alternatively you can collect from me in London E3. If you want any
different collection/payment arrangements, you need to discuss it with
me before 4pm today (minimus at m3 dot ath dot cx).

Chris

[Nigel Worsley]

>They can also pretend to be mass storage devices too :)

Ideal for a 16G write only memory stick - just store the directory and throw away the rest :)

Nigle

[Chris McClelland]

Because the USB Mass Storage protocol works at the block level rather
than the file level, it's fairly straightforward to make an MSD backed
by an SD card using one of these. I did that with a similar USB AVR a
few years ago. The result is not great. I got an (admittedly
unoptimised) throughput of about 500KiB/s on raw block reads and
writes. Compare this to speeds of the order 10MiB/s achievable by
modern commercial MSDs. You're limited to a theoretical throughput of
about 1MiB/s by the raw Full-Speed USB throughput and by the 8Mbit/s
throughput of the SPI.

Interestingly, it's possible even with 512 bytes of RAM to write
firmware that implements enough of FAT32 to stream the data from a
file on an SD card. Writing files (as opposed to raw blocks) TO an SD
is probably not possible with only 512 bytes of RAM, but reading
certainly is. There's not enough RAM to store an entire block from the
file allocation table, so you have to cache small (~64 byte) sections
of it whilst you read the data clusters referenced by your FAT cache.

Chris

[Glen]

12 please.

On Feb 7, 7:27 pm, Chris McClelland <google....@m3.ath.cx> wrote:

[tom]

> Because the USB Mass Storage protocol works at the block level rather
> than the file level, it's fairly straightforward to make an MSD backed
> by an SD card using one of these.

I did the same but instead of an SD card I used a 11.5k serial
connection back to the same machine with a python tool to map blocks
to a mmap'ed file. It was damn slow but awesome!!

[Chris McClelland]

OK, the order is in. I used the state of Paul's twiki at 16:00. The
total came to 237 boards, and a frankly scary total cost of £2.50 *
237 + £7.99 P&P = £600.49.

I have amortised the cost of postage over all 237 boards, meaning the
cost of each board is a little more than £2.53:

NAME #BOARDS COST

Chris 34 £86.15
Charles (Solexious) 10 £25.34
Tim Storey 10 £25.34
M a.turntablist 15 £38.01
Paul2 4 £10.14
Monty 10 £25.34
Paragon 15 £38.01
JJC 4 £10.14
TimH 4 £10.14
asc 4 £10.14
artag 4 £10.14
stugrey 4 £10.14
Kimball (drrk) 4 £10.14
Matt (deafanon) 4 £10.14
TomW 4 £10.14
Paddy Duncan 4 £10.14
aden 4 £10.14
DMI 4 £10.14
Bob (b3cft) 10 £25.34
James C 10 £25.34
Matt H 12 £30.41
SamLR 4 £10.14
RMS 45 £114.02
Nicholas F-D (wzdd) 10 £25.34
Will (Eb4890) 2 £5.07
IanB 2 £5.07
Total: £600.60

I've rounded each line up to the nearest penny, so I make a whopping
11p profit!

Unless I've made other arrangements with you offline, please bring the
amount shown by your name to the LHS on Tuesday night. I'll be there
from 7pm. Please bring the correct change.

Chris

[Anish]

Hi Chris,
My name seem to be missing :(. I did put in request for 10
Regards

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----

[RJ]

Hey Guys,

Just in case anyone missed the LHS order, i'm organising BuildBrighton's order if anyone wants to buy in, i have about 70 left pre-ordered.

Rev Dave

--
=============================
     Universal Life Church Reverend
       Cheaper Car Insurance Lane
                       Swansea
                        SA6 7JL
=============================

[Anish]

Hi Dave,
Can I have say 4 atleast please :)
Regards
Anish

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

---

From: RJ <robo...@gmail.com>

Sender: london-h...@googlegroups.com

Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 17:05:03 +0000

To: <london-h...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: london-h...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [london-hack-space] Re: Minimus AVR USB dev boar ds a t £2.50 each!

[RJ]

Hi Anish,

I have put you on my order list for 4 units for now, let me know if you want more! Once i have the full 100+ confirmed, i will produce invoices for you all and then once the funds are in i will send every buyer the tracking number.

Rev Dave

[Glen]

I don't see my name there.

[Monty]

That's because you didn't add your name to the wiki.

[RJ]

Glen,

If you still want any i have 65 left

RevDave

[Chris McClelland]

Sorry, your name was not on the twiki. I did say I would use the state
of the twiki as of 4pm today.

If others fail to pay up, there may be some spare that you can buy.

[Chris McClelland]

OK, the Minimus order has arrived:

http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?p=2309

If you want to collect your order from my home in E3 (about three
miles east of the LHS), let me know (minimus at m3 dot ath dot cx). If
not, please bring the right money for your order to LHS next Tuesday
evening. I'll be there from about 7:30pm, assuming someone's around to
let me in.

If you have not made alternative arrangements with me, and you don't
show up by 9:30pm on Tuesday evening, you risk losing your allocation.

Chris

[Sam Cook]

Thanks for this Chris!

S

[Hercules Fisherman]

can you put me down for 10 too thanks
Hercules

[Elliot Duffy]

Hi Dave,

Please could I take 4 if you have any left unassigned?

Many thanks,

Elliot

[Tim Storey]

Chris,

I have nasty flu and won't be able to make it into the space tonight o
collect my 10 boards.
I do still however want them, so please can you contact me off list to
arrange a funds transfer...
ta

\t

[Chris McClelland]

A few people have asked me how to program their Minimus boards.

Here's a quick HOWTO:

*** WINDOWS ***
Install Atmel FLIP and WinAVR:
http://www.atmel.com/Images/Flip%20Installer%20-%203.4.5.106.exe
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winavr/files/WinAVR/20100110/WinAVR-20100110-install.exe/download
Insert your Minimus into a spare USB port.
Open a command-prompt and type:
wget http://www.swaton.ukfsn.org/uploads/2011/09/blinky1.tar.gz
tar zxf blinky1.tar.gz
cd blinky1
make
make flash

*** LINUX (Debian, Ubuntu) ***
Insert your Minimus into a spare USB port.
Open a command-prompt and type:
sudo apt-get install gcc-avr
sudo apt-get install avr-libc
sudo apt-get install dfu-programmer
wget http://www.swaton.ukfsn.org/uploads/2011/09/blinky1.tar.gz
tar zxf blinky1.tar.gz
cd blinky1
make
sudo make dfu


*** RETURN TO THE BOOTLOADER ***
Once the code is loaded into the Minimus's flash it will execute at
power-on. If you make changes to the code and want to re-flash the
Minimus, you need to get back to the bootloader, which is a four-step
process:

1) Press RESET
2) Press HWB
3) Release RESET
4) Release HWB

It's tempting to just hold down HWB whilst you press RESET briefly,
which in many cases will work fine, but if the current firmware
configures HWB as an output and drives it high, pressing the HWB
button will eventually kill the microcontroller. So get into the habit
of doing the four-step process above.

*** POWER OPTIONS ***
With a bit of track-cutting and soldering you can configure your
Minimus for different power options:

1) +5V from USB (default)
2) +3.3V from AT90USB162's internal regulator
3) +5V external supply
4) +3.3V external supply

See http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?p=1881 for details.

*** FURTHER READING ***
You will need a copy of the AT90USB162 datasheet from Atmel:

www.atmel.com/Images/doc7707.pdf

You may find these pages on my website useful:

http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?cat=34&paged=1
http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?cat=34&paged=2
http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?page_id=703
http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?page_id=780

Also, many of the USB device examples in LUFA will work out-of-the-
box:

http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php

Have fun!

Chris

[tom]

) Press RESET
  2) Press HWB
  3) Release RESET
  4) Release HWB

i find it easier to hold reset and rock my finger across to the other
button, then back again :)

I've had great successes with LUFA, the traffic lights in the space
are now a USB HID device and I've succesfully replayed mouse-movements
from the device using ones recorded from a Processing app

Not getting anywhere with servos yet though

On Feb 21, 10:42 am, Chris McClelland <google....@m3.ath.cx> wrote:
> A few people have asked me how to program their Minimus boards.
>
> Here's a quick HOWTO:
>
> *** WINDOWS ***
> Install Atmel FLIP and WinAVR:
>  http://www.atmel.com/Images/Flip%20Installer%20-%203.4.5.106.exe

>  http://sourceforge.net/projects/winavr/files/WinAVR/20100110/WinAVR-2...

> Insert your Minimus into a spare USB port.
> Open a command-prompt and type:

>   wgethttp://www.swaton.ukfsn.org/uploads/2011/09/blinky1.tar.gz

>   tar zxf blinky1.tar.gz
>   cd blinky1
>   make
>   make flash
>
> *** LINUX (Debian, Ubuntu) ***
> Insert your Minimus into a spare USB port.
> Open a command-prompt and type:
>   sudo apt-get install gcc-avr
>   sudo apt-get install avr-libc
>   sudo apt-get install dfu-programmer

>   wgethttp://www.swaton.ukfsn.org/uploads/2011/09/blinky1.tar.gz

> Seehttp://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?p=1881for details.

>
> *** FURTHER READING ***
> You will need a copy of the AT90USB162 datasheet from Atmel:
>
> www.atmel.com/Images/doc7707.pdf
>
> You may find these pages on my website useful:
>

> http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?cat=34&paged=1http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?cat=34&paged=2http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?page_id=703http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?page_id=780

[Martin Dittus]

The manual has instructions for OSX.

http://www.minimususb.com/minimus_v14.pdf (last page)

Blinky works :)

m.