[HN Gopher] Building Alex Taradov's open-source USB sniffer
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Building Alex Taradov's open-source USB sniffer
Author : zdw
Score : 119 points
Date : 2023-08-06 23:08 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.downtowndougbrown.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.downtowndougbrown.com)
| aa-jv wrote:
| Taradov's sniffer is great - if you can get the parts, and can
| afford to wait for the PCB to ship, have a surface-mount oven,
| and so on - but alas he isn't selling them.
|
| So I opted for a Cynthion instead, which also isn't shipping
| (yet) but promises to be available Real Soon Now(tm):
|
| https://greatscottgadgets.com/cynthion/
|
| .. similar device, a bit more feature-laden .. and supposed to
| ship at the end of the month. Grr...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > but alas he isn't selling them.
|
| Selling electronics is hard. You need a ton of upfront cash to
| order all the components, have to deal with a boatload of legal
| compliance stuff (if you're in Europe: RF interference, RoHS,
| registering _and paying money_ for eventual recycling, CE
| certification tests, translated instruction manuals that have
| to accompany the product even though they are completely
| pointless), shipping, customs, refunds, repairs, your device
| bricking someone else 's device, trademarks/licensing and
| associated fees (HDMI I'm looking at you), refunding people
| when your project fails for whatever reason but you already had
| to spend money (particularly the RF interference stuff has sunk
| many a project)...
|
| In contrast, just putting out a board design and BoM is waaaaay
| easier. No way for anyone to hold you liable for anything.
| rescbr wrote:
| As I understand it, development kits (such as this board) are
| exempt of certification. Nonetheless, the rest of your
| argument still stands.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Just curious, what about "PCBA" services i.e. those places
| that make the PCBs but also mount / solder components for
| you?
|
| Is it generally possible to give them a BOM and ask to
| populate a whole board (i.e. order and receive a completed
| board, without having to solder everything)? Or are there
| necessarily going to be parts -- like the Cypress or Lattice
| chips here -- that the PCBA vendor will probably not have
| access to?
|
| I'm just imagining a middle point between "here's a BOM" and
| "here's a finished product you can order" (with all of the
| regulatory issues that you're describing).
|
| Could there be a "click here to have it created & soldered
| for you, but for this to still be a DIY thing" i.e. one click
| order-a-finished-board?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Spirit of the law vs letter of the law.
| wrs wrote:
| To order assembled boards from JLCPCB you just have to
| upload the PCB design files and BOM/placement files and
| give them a credit card. People are even recommending
| ordering the Cypress part from LCSC (JLCPCB's parts
| division) already. So they might be able to completely
| assemble this with a straightforward enough order process.
| However, the minimum assembly order is two boards.
|
| Edit: Another potential issue is that their in-stock parts
| do vary, so you wouldn't be guaranteed of a successful
| order from an old BOM. The designer would probably need to
| update the files periodically.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Getting the boards physically manufactured is just the tip
| of the iceberg.
|
| There is typically FCC testing that costs tens of
| thousands, emc/emissions testing, and then dafety testing
| (UL, etc.) If it's required.
|
| It can cost hundreds of thousands to do all those things
| just to legally be allowed to sell your product in any real
| quantity.
| datpiff wrote:
| LCSC sells the CY7C68013A. You could order a board from JLCPCB
| with that part pre-soldered for a few bux
| genter wrote:
| You can solder QFN on a stovetop with a frying pan filled with
| play sand.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| To quote a famous linguist: "Don't get technical with me!"
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Red Pitayas are similar and shipping now:
|
| https://redpitaya.com/
| unwind wrote:
| Meta: the actual main content is video, the article is mainly a
| meta piece about what an USB protocol analyzer is, and when you
| would want one. I did not watch the video (yet) but the article
| is pretty nice too as an introduction to the topic.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I do love when expensive/specialized things get cloned for cheap.
| It's nice that it happens so often in the hobbyist electronics
| world.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| > Where hardware sniffers come in handy is if you're a firmware
| developer who is diagnosing a problem with a USB device or host
| you're creating, or maybe you're a driver developer working on a
| driver for a USB host controller. You need to see exactly what's
| happening on the USB data wires to make sure that every packet
| looks correct. Perhaps you suspect your device's firmware has a
| bug where the DATA0/1 toggle isn't behaving as it should.
|
| >The really cool thing about this sniffer is that it integrates
| with Wireshark. You can make use of protocol decoders already
| built into Wireshark for interpreting USB packets, as well as its
| fancy filtering capability. Ellisys devices, in comparison, use a
| proprietary USB analysis program. Protocol decoding is unlocked
| for an extra charge of thousands of dollars.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I bought all the components for this a couple weeks ago (based on
| the EEVBlog discussions), but haven't ordered the board yet. I
| wasn't able to find the 4x resistor networks in stock, so bought
| 2x networks instead and expect I can make those fit just fine.
| dougg3 wrote:
| (Author here) I ended up buying a bunch of the components,
| including all of the passives, at LCSC. Notably the Cypress
| chip was much less expensive there too. Here's a link to the
| resistor network part I bought:
|
| https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/_UNI-ROYAL-Uniroyal-Elec...
|
| On a side note, I mentioned in the video that it was super
| tedious to solder all of the passives. If I were doing this
| again I would strongly consider doing the JLCPCB/LCSC thing and
| having them populate all of the caps/resistors on the bottom
| side for me.
| kramerger wrote:
| Can t see the BOM, but isnt that dependent on the type of
| network?
|
| https://github.com/ataradov/usb-sniffer
|
| Anyway, I hate tiny SMD r-network as they are magnets for
| bridges. Would rather use discrete components if possible.
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(page generated 2023-08-08 23:02 UTC)