Building the cube

davehillier ATTiny45, AVR, Electronics, Prototyping, , , , , , ,

I’ve finally set about building the USB mail alert.
In my previous post, I showed the bread board prototype of my cube hack. Here is the adapted circuit diagram.

schematic
schematic

Note: There is an error in the diagram 2 is actually D+ and 3 is D-

When laying out circuits, it is a good idea to, start with the largest component first, in this case, the ATTiny45. I want to program the chip first so I am using a DIL socket. This also has the advantage of protecting the chip from excessive heat when soldering. I’d also like to use as small a board as possible so I am limiting the width to six tracks. Place all the components on the board before soldering so you can get an idea of how large the board needs to be. I followed the layout of the breadboard, however I want to make the circuit small so I have mounted the resistors and diodes vertically, with one leg bent back.

I also tried to avoid cutting tracks with the spot cutter and instead used a knife to allow components to be closer to each other. This requires a sharp knife and care must be taken to cut only one track. Soldering is also more challenging, solder sparingly, to avoid bridging across your cuts.

I cut the tracks under the chip; note that the reset pin is left disconnected. If you needed extra IO you can flash the chip to use it as such but after that you can no longer reprogram it so I avoid that as I may use the chips from previous devices in future things.

I soldered the LEDs at the end of their leads, towards the end of the PCB. This means they will be in the center of the difuser. They also have a series resistor to reduce the AVR output voltage from 3.6V to the approriate level. This resistor may not be required with some ultrabright LEDs.

To fit in the cube, I have removed the circuit, the coin cells and cover. The cube is going to be used as a cover for the new circuit so I have just cut a space using a sharp knife allowing space for the LEDs to fit into the diffuser. The circuit is slotted into the empty cube to complete the device. Plug it in and test it using the libusb command line tool, mentioned in a previous post.

The finished cube
The finished cube

22 thoughts on “Building the cube”

  1. Great looking cube!

    Would be nice if you can add more details and pictures. For example which toolchain do you use, how do you flash the ATTiny, how fast can you change the colors… is it fast enough for color fading? How much will it cost to build your own (from scratch). Never used an Atmel controller, sorry if I ask beginner questions. Thanks 🙂

    Reply

  3. Hi Dave

    As you know we are playing with this project over at http://www.eeeuser.com‘s forums, but I am having some issues compiling the code and getting the project up and running.

    Been able to get set-led running for a short while, but can’t keep it reliable…

    Blair

    Reply

      • ‘m having some reliability issues with the reliability of the circuit. Last night I attempted to move the set-led program to the usr/bin folder

        I am not sure if I broke something there or elsewhere, but I can’t get it to light up again. Been playing with it tonight and no joy. It sees a device is attached

        blair@blair-laptop:~/Documents/avrusb/firmware$ lsusb
        Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
        Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
        Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
        Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
        Bus 001 Device 011: ID 16c0:05df VOTI
        Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

        However when I run Set-Led I get this error message.

        blair@blair-laptop:~/Documents/avrusb/commandline$ ./set-led 255 0 0
        Could not find USB device “LEDCtlHID” with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5df

        I also tried this…

        blair@blair-laptop:~/Documents/avrusb/commandline$ lsusb -d 16c0:05df -v

        Bus 001 Device 011: ID 16c0:05df VOTI
        Device Descriptor:
        bLength 18
        bDescriptorType 1
        bcdUSB 1.10
        bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
        bDeviceSubClass 0
        bDeviceProtocol 0
        bMaxPacketSize0 8
        idVendor 0x16c0 VOTI
        idProduct 0x05df
        bcdDevice 2.00
        iManufacturer 1
        iProduct 2
        iSerial 0
        bNumConfigurations 1
        Configuration Descriptor:
        bLength 9
        bDescriptorType 2
        wTotalLength 34
        bNumInterfaces 1
        bConfigurationValue 1
        iConfiguration 0
        bmAttributes 0x80
        (Bus Powered)
        MaxPower 40mA
        Interface Descriptor:
        bLength 9
        bDescriptorType 4
        bInterfaceNumber 0
        bAlternateSetting 0
        bNumEndpoints 1
        bInterfaceClass 3 Human Interface Device
        bInterfaceSubClass 0 No Subclass
        bInterfaceProtocol 0 None
        iInterface 0
        HID Device Descriptor:
        bLength 9
        bDescriptorType 33
        bcdHID 1.01
        bCountryCode 0 Not supported
        bNumDescriptors 1
        bDescriptorType 34 Report
        wDescriptorLength 22
        Report Descriptors:
        ** UNAVAILABLE **
        Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength 7
        bDescriptorType 5
        bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN
        bmAttributes 3
        Transfer Type Interrupt
        Synch Type None
        Usage Type Data
        wMaxPacketSize 0x0008 1x 8 bytes
        bInterval 100
        cannot read device status, Operation not permitted (1)

      • Have you changed the name of the device? What is VOTI?
        Double check the length of the Report Descriptors. That section being unavailable looks suspicious.

      • I haven’t changed the code at all. I do get a warning when I compile the firmware hex.

        blair@blair-laptop:~/Documents/avrusb/firmware$ make hex
        avr-gcc -Wall -Os -DF_CPU=16500000 -Iusbdrv -I. -DDEBUG_LEVEL=0 -mmcu=attiny45 -c usbdrv/usbdrv.c -o usbdrv/usbdrv.o
        avr-gcc -Wall -Os -DF_CPU=16500000 -Iusbdrv -I. -DDEBUG_LEVEL=0 -mmcu=attiny45 -x assembler-with-cpp -c usbdrv/usbdrvasm.S -o usbdrv/usbdrvasm.o
        avr-gcc -Wall -Os -DF_CPU=16500000 -Iusbdrv -I. -DDEBUG_LEVEL=0 -mmcu=attiny45 -c usbdrv/oddebug.c -o usbdrv/oddebug.o
        avr-g++ -Wall -Os -DF_CPU=16500000 -Iusbdrv -I. -DDEBUG_LEVEL=0 -mmcu=attiny45 -c main.cpp -o main.o
        main.cpp:44: warning: only initialized variables can be placed into program memory area
        avr-gcc -Wall -Os -DF_CPU=16500000 -Iusbdrv -I. -DDEBUG_LEVEL=0 -mmcu=attiny45 -o main.elf usbdrv/usbdrv.o usbdrv/usbdrvasm.o usbdrv/oddebug.o main.o
        rm -f main.hex main.eep.hex
        avr-objcopy -j .text -j .data -O ihex main.elf main.hex
        avr-size main.hex
        text data bss dec hex filename
        0 2016 0 2016 7e0 main.hex

        I don’t know if this is where the problem lies

      • I dont think so, the VOTI is a vendor ID issued from

        http://www.voti.nl/shop/catalog.html?usb

        I am not sure, but I think it may mean that the source is not compiling properly and perhaps the device ID and Vendor ID are being compiled?

        I have hunted through the code with my novice like eyes and I can’t work out why not. But I wonder if its to do with that warning.

        Not out of laziness, but more from frustration, but any chance of publishing the compiled hex?

      • I mean Device Descriptor and Vendor descriptor

        main.cpp:44: warning: only initialized variables can be placed into program memory area

        I wonder if this is where it goes wrong

  4. Hi Dave,

    We got it running now without errors. The device name “VOTI” is normal (I built a circuit for testing and can see a device “VOTI” too when I use lsusb, albeit with proper Vid/Pid). My guess is that “lsusb” only does show the nedor name not the device name. Voti is probably the vendor name of the guy from the netherlands who bought Vid/Pid pair(s?) from usb.org and sells them to the company that makes V-USB. Or something like that. 🙂

    What would you suggest as a compiler for WinXP – MinGW perhaps? I’m a total noob with C, and just need that “set-led.exe”..

    Thanks

    Dennis

    Reply

  6. I built one last night and use it in my office to let me know if my server is running or not. Thanks for sharing your excellent project!

    Jim

    Reply

  7. Hi Dave,
    I built a PCB, but not too small since it’s not using surface mount components… I’d be happy to send you one if you want to email me your address. Thanks again for sharing your great project.

    Jim

    Reply

  8. I have worked up a schematic from the “the cube” hardware from Dave Hiller. The difference is that it uses an external 12v power source (does not draw power from usb) and drives three NPN power transistors to power 5m of RGB LED Strip (1A). Or, to generate a signal for an external signal amplifiers.

    I am posting this to get feed back (I don’t have a test suite to test it out) to see if it should work.

    sfranzyshen

    schematic

    Reply

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