It’s remarkable how tiny electronics have become. Heaven knows what an old-timer whose experience started with tubes must think, to go from solder tags to SMD in a lifetime is some journey. Even the generation that started with discrete transistors has lived through an incredible shift. But it’s true, SMD components are tiny, and that…
via Review: SMD Tweezer Meter or Tweezer Probes For Your Multimeter? — Hackaday
It is pretty unusual to be reading Bloomberg Businessweek and see an article with the main picture featuring a purple PCB (the picture above, in fact). But that’s just what we saw this morning. The story is about an open source modification to an insulin pump known as the RileyLink. This takes advantage of older…
Strap on the jeweler’s loupe and lay off the caffeine for a few days. You’ll need to be at your peak for the SMD Soldering Challenge at this year’s DEF CON… 367 more words
Meanwhile at Ctrl-H PDX hackerspace:
Anyone in the hackerspace lately may have noticed our @DC503 #badgelife projects taking shape. If you’re headed to @defcon and want to get your hands on this one, or get one of these around your hands, check out http://503.party . See you in Vegas!
OSH Park is producing electronic conference badges for the 2018 Open Hardware Summit. The hardware has been designed Alex Camilo, based on concepts from the ESP trINKet by Mike Rankin. The badge features an ESP32 microcontroller and a 2.13″ E-Paper display.
OSH Park shared project for the Rev 3 by Alex Camilo :
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/8yeLK5gd
We expect this to be the final revision.
Timeline:
It is ordered on Super Swift today and should be validated next weekend. This will allow us to order the full quantity PCB panels in August 13th. Assembly is estimated to be 10 business days from the day when all components and PCBs are received.
Rev 2 photos:
And for those interested, here is a link to a gallery:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UhCUX7eRN38tAhsF7
Terminal output on Rev 2 prototypes:
The Rev 2 prototypes have NodeMCU boards soldered on to the back to serve as a USB to serial adapter.
One of the Rev 2 prototype boards that Alex sent me has the default e-paper demo:
The other has MicroPython installed! 🙂
Resources for the 2018 Open Hardware Summit badge:
From Jenny List on Hackaday:
Building things that fly is hard. The constraints on small, battery powered, radio-operated gear already presents a challenge, but adding weight, balance, and aerodynamic constraints takes it to a whole new level. Sophi Kravitz rises to the occasion and discusses each challenge of building a blimp from start to finish in her presentation at the 2018 Hackaday Belgrade conference.
One of the pleasures of writing for Hackaday comes through the incredible array of talent and experience to be found among our colleagues. We all do our own work, but one is humbled by that which flows from the benches of those one works alongside. Just such a project is the Remote Control Mini Blimp from our colleague Sophi Kravitz. It’s a game involving an obstacle course and a set of remote-controlled blimps. The challenges in such an endeavour have been pushing the limits of what is possible with off-the-shelf components.
So after a series of versions, she had a PCB with left and right motors on two arms and a lift motor pointing downwards, which she suspended beneath the helium bag. Her controllers are simple enough 3D-printed joystick housings, with another ESP8266 within. The blimp ESP8266 forms a wireless network to which the controller connects.
Probably inspired by the successful Bootlin campaign for open source Allwinner VPU drivers, two days ago Maciei Suminski and Tomasz Wlostowski made Youtube video where they apeal for fund rising 30 000 CHF for the development of KiCAD v6! Everyone can show their support for the most successful open source PCB design tool at: https://givetokicad.web.cern.ch
Badge·Life (noun): the art of spending too much time, energy, money, and creativity to design and produce amazing custom electronics and get them into the hands of those who appreciate incredible craftsmanship.
via Unofficial Badges Get Official Recognition at DEF CON: Badge Life Contest — Hackaday
Teardown: Portland 2018 session videos
Between the talks, workshops, presentations, demos, and installations at Teardown 2018, there was a lot of intense information to absorb at once. Luckily, we were able to record some of the speakers doing their thing so attendees could reflect back and those who weren’t able to come physically are still able to participate. Videos are embedded in the sessions page. Here are shortcuts to each video:
[Andrzej Laczewski] has something big in mind for small parts, specifically SMD resistors and capacitors. He’s not talking much about that project, but from the prototype 3D-printed bowl feeder he built as part of it, we can guess that it’s going to be a pretty cool automation project.
Bowl feeders are common devices in industrial automation, used to take a big pile of parts like nuts and bolts and present them to a process one at a time, often with some sort of orientation step so that all the parts are the right way around. They accomplish this with a vibratory action through two axes, which [Andrzej] accomplishes with the 3D-printed ABS link arms supporting the bowl.
via A 3D-Printed Bowl Feeder for Tiny SMD Parts — Hackaday
OSH Park 