DIN SPEC 3105: industry specification published for Open Source Hardware

August 3, 2020August 3, 2020 fustinidin, germany, oshwLeave a comment

🎊 DIN SPEC 3105 "open source hardware, requirements for technical documentation" is out 🎊 ! Check it out in the GitLab repo of this community initiative 👉🏻 https://t.co/c1wGEa9Zre (1/5)

— Jérémy Bonvoisin (@Du33Jerry) June 27, 2020

The German standards body DIN now has a specification for Open Source Hardware documentation:

GitLab: Open Hardware Standards

Open Source Hardware: Technical Documentation Requirements

The published specification is available from DIN:

Jérémy Bonvoisin wrote on Twitter:

The icing on the cake: this is the first standard to be published by DIN under cc license and to adopt an open and community based process for any of the new version to come! It’s both a progress for open source hardware AND for standardisation processes as such!

The icing on the cake: this is the first standard to be published by DIN under cc license and to adopt an open and community based process for any of the new version to come! It's both a progress for open source hardware AND for standardisation processes as such! (5/5)

— Jérémy Bonvoisin (@Du33Jerry) June 27, 2020

More information is available in this paper by Jérémy Bonvoisin, Jenny Molloy, Martin Haeuer, and Tobias Wenzel:

Standardisation of practices in Open Source Hardware

Standardisation is an important component in the maturation of any field of technology. It contributes to the formation of a recognisable identity and enables interactions with a wider community. This article reviews past and current standardisation initiatives in the field of Open Source Hardware (OSH). While early initiatives focused on aspects such as licencing, intellectual property and documentation formats, recent efforts extend to ways for users to exercise their rights under open licences and to keep OSH projects discoverable and accessible online. We specifically introduce two standards that are currently being released and call for early users and contributors, the DIN SPEC 3105 and the Open Know How Manifest Specification. Finally, we reflect on challenges around standardisation in the community and relevant areas for future development such as an open tool chain, modularity and hardware specific interface standards.

Open Source Hardware in industry – meet DIN SPEC 3105

January 11, 2020July 14, 2020 fustini36c3, germany, oshwLeave a comment

Martin Häuer of Open Source Ecology Germany gave a talk at 36c3 about a recent effort to create a standard for Open Source Hardware with DIN (the German Institute for Standardization):

Open Source Hardware in industry – meet DIN SPEC 3105

Compared to software, the open source approach is relatively new to most actors in the field of (mechanical) hardware.

Plus Open Source Hardware faces some special issues. A yet missing definition of its “source code” is one of them (+ patent law, liability, engineers that do not know how to work with git, costly prototyping…)

DIN SPEC 3105 will be/is the first official standard for Open Source Hardware and also the first official standard ever published under a free license (CC-BY-SA 4.0; that was a lot of lobby work 😉 ). It defines the technology-specific “source” of Open Source Hardware and aims to build a bridge between research institutes, public authority, industry and the worldwide open source community.

Here is a PDF of the slides: OSH Standardisation-36c3

To look into the standards themselves:

Additional information is hosted on GitLab:

Technology-specific Documentation Criteria (TsDC) specify the requirements for the technical documentation of Open Source Hardware (OSH). A TsDC is created (yet manually) by OSH projects/developers and is a subset of the TsDC database (TsDC-DB) provided in this repository. The concept of a TsDC was initially mentioned in DIN SPEC 3105-1 (since v0.3) and probably will be mainly used in this context.

Learn more about Open Source Ecology Germany on their website:

Enable a sustainable way of life and the emergence of an open source economy through self-created and freely available means of production .

Awesome to meet Open Source Ecology Germany, @LibreSolar and @Schadonis yesterday at #36c3

Looking forward to the open Source Hardware in industry talk Sunday pic.twitter.com/cey44EFrm1

— @[email protected] (@pdp7) December 28, 2019

Apertus SMT workshop at Maker Faire Berlin

June 10, 2017June 10, 2017 fustiniberlin, education, germany, Maker Faire, SMD, SMT, surface mount, workshopLeave a comment

The Apertus° open source cinema team will be running a Surface Mount Technology (SMT) workshop at Maker Faire Berlin this weekend in their AXIOM booth #121:

SMT workshop is on at @MakerFaireBER booth 121 @oshpark pic.twitter.com/0QahRreKub

— apertus° (@ApertusOSCinema) June 10, 2017

Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Workshop

In the course of attending a lot of fairs and exhibitions, we’ve noticed that our cameras and components attract the attention of people from all walks of life. We’ve found that despite our reassurances, people discovering the world of Open Hardware tend to doubt their capabilities where soldering tiny components by hand is concerned.

https://www.apertus.org/smt-workshop

This is why we hold Surface Mount Technology workshops – so that with a little confidence, the right tools and some initial guidance from members of our team, anyone can have great fun learning to make their own PCBs. The workshops are very popular and we have visitors designing pendants and earrings with colour LEDs and blinking patterns – which always creates a buzzing atmosphere.