Month: May 2020

Open Source Hardware Certifications for April 2020

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From Make magazine:

Open Source Hardware Certifications for April 2020

The Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) runs a free program that allows creators to certify that their hardware complies with the community definition of open source hardware.  Whenever you see the certification logo, you know that the certified hardware meets this standard.

apr-oshw-00

The certification site includes a full list of all of the certified open source hardware. Here is all of the hardware that was certified in April, which comes from the United States, Azerbaijan, India, Croatia, Germany, Poland, and Spain.

The OSHW community had been off to a strong start in 2020 with 54 projects certified in Q1. After February, we predicted here on Makezine.com that the certification program was on track for its strongest year ever. The surge in April has far surpassed our expectations with a total of 269 total projects certified last month alone, nearly twice that of 2019 in just one month.

Adafruit (All The Things)

Open Hardware leader Adafruit has dedicated a massive amount of time and effort towards certifying their back catalog of products. Hundreds have already passed certification at the time of writing this. We colloquially dubbed last month “Adafruit April” because of the sheer number of projects. In an interview with OSHdata, Founder Limor Fried takes us behind the scenes:

“Adafruit had certified some boards in the past to help support the effort. The barrier for certification for us was time. For us, the question was – do we stop everything and try to certify hundreds of boards? Or do we keep making open-source hardware? We choose to keep making open-source hardware with a goal to get it certified eventually, and/or wait for an API to automate the certification,” Fried explains.

Then COVID-19 happened. Adafruit has been running for 60+ days with no illnesses, no layoffs, no furlough, and no cut hours. They continued operations (after being deemed an essential business in NYC by Executive Order 202.6). Despite being busier than ever, this was also a time for reflection.

“It did occur to us that while our hardware is and always will be open-source, it was not certified. In March with the death rate increasing each day, as grim as it sounds, it was unclear what could happen to any of us in NYC or Adafruit. What is the best thing we can do for our community?” she and the team asked themselves.

That’s when Adafruit team members stepped up to take on the Herculean effort of submitting and certifying hundreds of products.

“We’re not going to make as much hardware during this time… And while some of the team was diverted for critical needs, we decided to spend time putting the hardware through the certification process so it’s clear our intentions for our hardware, it’s open source, forever, certified, no matter what. Dylan on our team led this effort and at this time 5/4/2020, Adafruit has certified 261 boards, with more to come, Adafruit is now 36.76% of all certified hardware. The phrase ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ was applied here to continue to be a good cause, a good company, and give all we can in every way.”

Read the full interview with Adafruit Industries Founder Limor Fried here.

It’s impractical to go into detail about each of these projects — there are too many and this is but a simple blog post. Instead, we’d like to offer perspective on one of the certified projects: the Adafruit Trinket M0 (US000239). It’s a tiny microcontroller board built around the Atmel ATSAMD21 for use with CircuitPython and Arduino IDE. This small, affordable, and powerful platform is a great way to add interactivity to just about any project. For some context, we spoke with a pro.

 

Open Source Hardware Certifications for April 2020

OSHData: State of Open Hardware in Europe

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From OSHData:

cert-share-by-region

Special Report | State of Open Hardware in Europe

Introduction

OSHdata findings show that the Open Source Hardware (OSH) community is dynamic, growing, and still in its early days as a formal movement. For context, know that this report relies on the Open Source Hardware definition and the Open Source Hardware certification program, as defined by the Open Source Hardware Association. Learn more by visiting: https://oshwa.org/

As of February 2020, there are over 400 certified projects from 36 countries spanning five continents. The certification rate is increasing, too. Getting from 200 to 300 certified projects took nearly a year, but getting from 300 to 400 took a little over six months. Nearly 60% of the certified projects are available for sale at an average sale price of $211.47, though there is a big range here. The leading project categories include: electronics, 3D printing, tools, and education.

Comparative Output

If the European Union were a country, it would be second only to the United States in terms of the number of certified projects. European companies and creators have certified 125 different projects, versus 215 in the United States. Combined, they represent 85% of all certified projects worldwide.

Introduction

OSHdata findings show that the Open Source Hardware (OSH) community is dynamic, growing, and still in its early days as a formal movement. For context, know that this report relies on the Open Source Hardware definition and the Open Source Hardware certification program, as defined by the Open Source Hardware Association. Learn more by visiting: https://oshwa.org/

As of February 2020, there are over 400 certified projects from 36 countries spanning five continents. The certification rate is increasing, too. Getting from 200 to 300 certified projects took nearly a year, but getting from 300 to 400 took a little over six months. Nearly 60% of the certified projects are available for sale at an average sale price of $211.47, though there is a big range here. The leading project categories include: electronics, 3D printing, tools, and education.

Comparative Output

If the European Union were a country, it would be second only to the United States in terms of the number of certified projects. European companies and creators have certified 125 different projects, versus 215 in the United States. Combined, they represent 85% of all certified projects worldwide.

See a dynamic and interactive visualization of these trends — showing country leadership by month dating back to 2016 — by visiting: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1838881/

Quality of Work

It is important to note that the earlier measures merely focus on quantity, not quality. Select projects represent an evolutionary step forward because of the complex and “full stack” nature of the projects themselves. A simple 3D model can be considered an Open Source Hardware design, but there is a categorical difference between a widget and electronics that can function in outer space.

European companies and creators are contributing across a breadth of fields from high end cameras (like the AXIOM in Austria) and satellite equipment (like SatNOGS in Greece). They are also creating the enabling technologies that sup

See a dynamic and interactive visualization of these trends — showing country leadership by month dating back to 2016 — by visiting: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1838881/

Quality of Work

It is important to note that the earlier measures merely focus on quantity, not quality. Select projects represent an evolutionary step forward because of the complex and “full stack” nature of the projects themselves. A simple 3D model can be considered an Open Source Hardware design, but there is a categorical difference between a widget and electronics that can function in outer space.

European companies and creators are contributing across a breadth of fields from high end cameras (like the AXIOM in Austria) and satellite equipment (like SatNOGS in Greece). They are also creating the enabling technologies that support industrial capability (e.g. sensors, breakout boards, and Internet-connected devices).

Broad Participation

Participation spans the continent. While technology and manufacturing leaders like Germany and France are well represented, the Open Source Hardware capital of Europe is Plovdiv, Bulgaria thanks to the outsized contributions from companies like Olimex and ANAVI Technology. Other participating countries include: Greece, Sweden, Croatia, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Belgium, and Norway.

Top Countries Total
Bulgaria 59
Germany 14
France 8
Spain 7
Switzerland 7
United Kingdom 7

 

OSHData: State of Open Hardware in Europe

MNT Reform: Introducing the Much More Personal Computer

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The Reform laptop from Lukas and Greta at MNT Research in Berlin has now launched on CrowdSupply:

product-mnt-reform_jpg_project-body

MNT Reform

The open source DIY laptop for hacking, customization, and privacy

Mobile personal computers are becoming more and more opaque, vendor controlled, and hard to repair. Modern laptops have secret schematics, glued-in batteries, and components not under user control, like the Intel Management Engine or the Apple T2 security chip. Many people decide to tape over the built-in cameras of their laptops because they don’t know if they can trust the device or the software running on it.

Reform goes in the opposite direction. It is designed to be as open and transparent as possible, and to support a free and open source software stack from the ground up. It invites you to take a look under the hood, customize the documented electronics, and even repair it youself if you like. The Reform laptop has no built-in surveillance technologies, cameras, or microphones, so you can be confident that it will never spy on you. Built not around Intel technology, but NXP i.MX8M with 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 cores, Reform has a much simpler architecture than conventional laptops. This simplicity also makes for a more pleasant developer experience.

20200422-reform-hero_jpg_project-body

We are excited to have helped MNT prototype parts of the Reform:

Trackball

The new Reform trackball has five buttons, so you don’t have to worry anymore about how to do a middle click or use the trackball as a scroll wheel (hold bottom left or right button and roll the ball up and down). Of course, because our trackball firmware is open source, you can adjust the button functions to behave exactly as you like. We developed a custom SLA-printed mechanical housing for the trackball. For the ball’s optical motion tracking, we are using a Pixart PAT9125EL laser sensor interfacing with a ATmega32U2 MCU with open source firmware.

Trackpad

If you prefer a trackpad over the trackball, you can choose it as an option. The trackball and trackpad are interchangeable modules. The trackpad is based on the capacitive multi-touch sensor module TPS65-201A-S by Azoteq. Like the trackball, we drive it with a custom ATmega32U2 PCB and our own open source firmware.

And it is excellent to see that it is certified OSHW:

Certifications

Reform is open source hardware certified by OSHWA (Open Source Hardware Association): DE000017.

Licenses are:

  • CERN OHL-2.0-S (hardware)
  • GPL 3.0 (software, firmware)
  • CC-BY-SA 4.0 (documentation, artwork)
MNT Reform: Introducing the Much More Personal Computer

Parallel LEDinator for DB25 Connector

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Screenshot from 2020-05-07 22-34-55

Clever idea from Jeremy S Cook to monitor a parallel port:

Parallel LEDinator  for DB25 Connector

I array of input/output LEDs for CNC DB25 parallel connector. Nice to have some extra blinkenlights, which is great to show what’s going on with your CNC, and could be applicable for any sort of DB25-based connection. Let me know in the comments if there’s any interest in these, and perhaps I’ll make them and/or the design available.

The KiCad design files are on GitHub.

Parallel LEDinator for DB25 Connector

ESP32-S2 Hack Chat with Adafruit on Hackaday

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AdafruitESP32HackChatPosterV1_1-01

Join us on Wednesday, May 6 at noon Pacific for the ESP32-S2 Hack Chat with Limor “Ladyada” Fried and Scott Shawcroft!

When Espressif released the ESP8266 microcontroller back in 2014, nobody could have predicted how successful the chip was to become. While it was aimed squarely at the nascent IoT market and found its way into hundreds of consumer devices like smart light bulbs, hackers latched onto the chip and the development boards it begat with gusto, thanks to its powerful microcontroller, WiFi, and lots of GPIO.

The ESP8266 was not without its problems, though, and security was always one of them. The ESP32, released in 2016, addressed some of these concerns. The new chip added another CPU core, a co-processor, Bluetooth support, more GPIO, Ethernet, CAN, more and better ADCs, a pair of DACs, and a host of other features that made it the darling of the hacker world.

Now, after being announced in September of 2019, the ESP32-S2 is finally making it into hobbyist’s hands. On the face of it, the S2 seems less capable, with a single core and neither Bluetooth nor Ethernet. But with a much faster CPU, scads more GPIO, more ADCs, a RISC-V co-processor, native USB, and the promise of very low current draw, it could be that the ESP32-S2 proves to be even more popular with hobbyists as it becomes established.

To talk us through the new chip’s potential, Limor “Ladyada” Fried and Scott Shawcroft, both of Adafruit Industries, will join us on the Hack Chat. Come along and learn everything you need to know about the ESP32-S2, and how to put it to work for you.

join-hack-chatOur Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, May 6 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.

via ESP32-S2 Hack Chat with Adafruit — Hackaday

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Retrofitting a Charmhigh CHM-T36VA Machine with OpenPnP

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OpenPnP is a great open source framework for building a DIY SMT Pick&Place machine. But it does not stop there: It is possible to use OpenPnP with a commercial pick & place machine, for example the Charmhigh CHM-T36VA. This Chinese machine comes with its own controller software which works but is not that great. The good news is that it is possible to hack and retrofit the machine so it can run the much more powerful OpenPnP.

via Retrofitting a Charmhigh CHM-T36VA Machine with OpenPnP — MCU on Eclipse

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Virtually Maker Faire

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There will be a virtual Maker Faire tomorrow, Saturday, May 23rd:

VMF_makerfaireDOTcomHero

Virtually Maker Faire – May 23, 2020

Featuring Makers Responding to COVID-19

24 Hours of Presentations, Workshops, Demos, and Exhibits Across All Time Zones

Across the world, makers have responded to shortages of medical supplies and equipment with agile designs, adaptive distributed manufacturing, and community organizing. Virtually Maker Faire will be a stage to share the projects and learn from the people behind this extraordinary civic response.

Virtually Maker Faire will take place online through video sessions and an exhibit showcase on Make: Projects

Screenshot from 2020-05-03 20-36-13

Virtually Maker Faire

Ten Years of Open Source Hardware

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writes about a special momeny for the Open Source Hardware User Group (OSHUG):

OSHUG5

Ten Years of Open Source Hardware

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the inaugural meeting of the Open Source Hardware User Group (OSHUG). As such it seemed only appropriate to take a look back over the past decade at not only the history of OSHUG, but some of the history and the future of open hardware also.

Setting the scene

The Electron Club hackerpsace, Glasgow, 2008.

Let’s begin a little earlier and around 12-13 years ago. My own introduction to open source hardware — note that I will also use open hardware interchangeably and to mean the same thing — came in 2007/2008 via two different routes. The first of these being a fellow co-founder of Glasgow hackerspace, the Electron Club, who was excited at the artistic possibilities presented by the new Arduino platform. The second was a BT Osmosoft colleague who spotted the recently announced Bug Labs hardware and said, “Hey Andrew, this looks like it might be your sort of thing!”

Bug Labs are still around today and it appears their focus shifted from hardware to services. Of course, the Arduino story is well known and for many years it served as the open hardware poster child. What followed next, at least in the most visible sense, was a burgeoning ecosystem of relatively simple board designs — such as breakout modules for surface mount devices, along with Arduino compatibles and add-ons. There was a growing movement and this was focused mostly around microcontrollers and the enthusiast market. Simpler designs, but nevertheless important.

Openmoko

At this point it would be remiss not to mention two notable exceptions. The first of these being Openmoko, which set out to create a family of mobile phones with an open hardware specification — schematics and mechanical CAD files were provided — and open source O/S. Also another consumer electronics product, the Chumby, an embedded computer with a touch screen and WiFi.

In addition to which, Elphel had been quietly producing open hardware and free software powered video cameras for some time. Notably also there was OpenSPARC from Sun and the grassroots open silicon community, OpenCores, together with its flagship project, OpenRISC. These and other early open silicon efforts are covered in more detail in Gareth’s article, Digital FOSSils.

OSHUG #1

The nascent open hardware movement had started to gather momentum and in December 2009, Nesta, the UK based charity and innovation foundation, hosted a one day event dedicated to the topic. This served as a pivotal moment for many of those of us who attended and one outcome of this being the formation of the Open Source Hardware User Group.

Nesta-1536x710

OSHUG was co-founded in early 2010 by Paul Downey, Alan Wood and myself. Inspired by the Nesta event and also encouraged by UK semiconductor company, XMOS, which had decided to publish its development board designs as open hardware.

Fortunately, Paul and I both worked for BT’s open source innovation unit, Osmosoft, where community events were part of its remit. So on Thursday 29th April 2010 we hosted the first ever OSHUG meeting. For this we were honoured to have Professor David May — architect of the Transputer and then CTO of XMOS — present.

We decided from the outset that, although the focus would primarily be hardware with liberal licensed design artefacts, we would also encourage talks on related topics, such as embedded development, along with tools and techniques employed in hardware design and manufacture. A policy which has served OSHUG well and led to an ever interesting mix of topics.

A community grows

The first few meetings really enabled the group to establish itself and this wouldn’t have been possible without the support of BT Osmosoft. Themes explored included licensing and community, along with topics such as software-defined radio and FPGA development. For the sixth meeting we were hosted by London Hackspace and for the seventh the BBC, which featured talks on the BBC Computer Literacy project — which gave birth to the BBC Micro — and Domesday project.

The eighth meeting was the last that was held at the Osmosoft offices (the security arrangements at the Westminster telephone exchange we occupied were… tricky).

For the ninth meeting we were kindly hosted by Skills Matter. This featured an introduction to FPGA programming from Omer Kilic, a talk on OpenCores and OpenRISC from Dr Jeremy Bennett, and Lawrence Wilkinson gave a talk on emulating an IBM System/360 mainframe in FPGA.

….

Read the rest!

Ten Years of Open Source Hardware

KiCad and FreeCAD meetup with Anool on Sat. May 2nd

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There will be another KiCAD and FreeCAD meetup tomorrow with Anool on Saturday, May 2nd, at:

  • 9:00 US EDT / 13:30 UTC / 15:30 CEST / 19:00 India

TechDraw basics – I’ll demo using the FreeCAD TECHDRAW workbench to produce dimension drawings of KiCAD PCB.

Sometimes, it is useful to add this to project documentation.

Will try & answer questions too.

Join the Jitsi Meeting

 

KiCad and FreeCAD meetup with Anool on Sat. May 2nd