Through-hole chips are slowly falling by the wayside, and if you want to build something with new parts you will be using surface mount components. This means spreading paste and throwing it in the toaster oven.
Author: fustini
KiCad crash course this weekend
Learn how to design boards in KiCad this Saturday, April 28th, with Michael Welling:
One day KiCad Crash Course
We’ve asked Michael Welling of Qwerty Embedded Design to come to Reno to drop some knowledge on KiCad, an open source and multi-platform schematic capture and PCB layout tool. Michael uses KiCad for some of his famous designs such as LoFive, PocketBone, and BaconBits. Space is limited and you should have some basic electronics and CAD skills under your belt already to make the most of this unique opportunity.
This event will be recorded and live-streamed to the GroupGets YouTube channel
https://www.meetup.com/groupgets/events/249137749/#kicad
Time:
9:30am – 12:30pm
Break
2:00pm – 5:00pm
9:30am – 12:30pm
Break
2:00pm – 5:00pm
What to Bring:
If you would like to follow along bring a Laptop with KiCad installed
Links
Syllabus (https://bit.ly/2Fhjvgk)
KiCad EDA (http://kicad.org/)
Michael Welling (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwelling/)
Qwerty Embedded Design (https://groupgets.com/manufacturers/qwerty-embedded-design)
LoFive (https://github.com/mwelling/lofive)
PocketBone (https://github.com/mwelling/pocketbone-kicad)
BaconBits (https://www.hackster.io/mwelling/baconbits-f09ee9)
Hardware meetup this Thursday in SF
The next Hardware Developers Didactic Galactic (HDDG) is this Thursday, April 26th, at SupplyFrame’s office in San Francisco:
HDDG 29: Game Night!
Enjoy excellent yummy food and beverages while listening to talks by these game designing engineers.
Richard Hogben – Mixed Reality Smartphone Game
Adelle Lin – Multiplayer Games in Public SpacesHDDG is excited to host Adelle Lin this month. Adelle Lin (http://touchtech.io/ and http://adelleninja.com/) recently moved to San Francisco from New York and is an engineer at Intel. A lover of indie-games, she started building hardware so that she could create games that connect people in space. She has worked on projects shown at Paris Fashion Week, Play NYC, Come Out and Play, PlayTimesSquare, AR World Expo, Burning Man, and Maker Faire.
Developing games for public spaces is challenging and even more so when you introduce hardware components. Adelle will talk through various options to consider through the lens of games that she built for PlayTimesSquare (Symphonic Picnic) and PlayNYC (Star Catcher VR) – networking, hardware specs, interfaces, installation.
We are equally excited to welcome Richard Hogben (https://hackaday.io/rich ). Richard Hogben lives in San Francisco and works as a front end engineer at Supplyframe. His previous projects include a flying Hasselblad medium format film camera. Richard is currently organizing a project on Hackaday.io to build and assemble an Open NSynth Super synthesizer.
At HDDG, Rich will talk about a recent game that he designed and presented at the Hackaday Superconference. The game is called Pinned, and it is a mixed reality smartphone game with Unreal Engine and SteamVR room scale tracking.
After the talks, there will be demos, community announcements, and socializing. If you’d like to give a 2 minute demo/ community announcement, please see the organizers when you arrive to get set up.
A community announcement includes looking for a project partner, a job, offering a project/ job, the announcement of your startup launch, your Crowdfunding pitch, etc
https://www.meetup.com/Hardware-Developers-Didactic-Galactic/events/249704120/
PCB Artwork Hack Chat Transcript
The transcript has been posted from the Hack Chat last Friday with Andrew Sowa about Circuit Board artwork:
PCB Artwork & Photo Conversions Hack Chat Transcript
PCB Art is likely as old as the manufacturing process itself. It has evolved over time from engineers hiding easter eggs in wasted space to whole companies devoted to the intricate authentic design. Andrew has created his own style by using each layer of the PCB to make multi-color images from computer generated designs. In this chat he will talk about his process of turning photos into PCBs as well as tricks to getting high resolution results with KiCad.
In this chat, we’ll be talking about PCB artwork:
- Bitmap to SVG Converstion (Inkscape and Illustrator)
- Kicad Footprint creation
- PCB Fabrication Limits
- Backlighting
- Halftones
Robotics Module Challenge: Build Robot, Win Prizes
Brand new today, we’re going to go all in with the Robotics Module Challenge! This is the newest part of the 2018 Hackaday Prize which is only six weeks old, and already we’ve seen almost six hundred incredible entries. But a new challenge means a fresh start and a perfect time for you to begin your entry. This…
via Robotics Module Challenge: Build Robot, Win Prizes — Hackaday
This Is Your Last Chance To Design The Greatest In Open Hardware
This is the last weekend to get in on the Open Hardware Design Challenge, the first challenge of the 2018 Hackaday Prize. We’re looking for the boldest idea you can come up with. We want to see the beginnings of the next great bit of Open Hardware, and this is your chance to do it.…
via This Is Your Last Chance To Design The Greatest In Open Hardware — Hackaday
The Amp Hour podcast with guest Andrew Sowa
Electrical engineer and PCB designer Andrew Sowa recently joined Chris Gammell on The Amp Hour podcast:
Episode #386 – An Interview with Andrew Sowa
- Andrew is a “KiCad artist”!
0h 2m 48s - Interview with Saar from Boldport
0h 5m 26s - The layers of PCBs provide a color palette
0h 7m 15s - SVGs are made using Inkscape or illustrator
0h 8m 27s - Chris uses Sketch (mac only)
0h 9m 14s - Andrew wrote a tutorial about how to render into 6 colors
0h 9m 42s - Crosshatch in color
0h 10m 26s - Flouresce under UV
0h 11m 32s - Benchoff badges
0h 12m 11s - Pumping Station: One
0h 12m 56s - Tour of Art Institute shops by Supplyframe
0h 14m 51s - His day job is fixtures for decorative lighting
0h 19m 55s - Working with Contract Manufacturers (Andrew later wrote about this)
0h 21m 34s - Pairing power supply and LED board
0h 22m 59s - Binning LEDs for color temp consistency
0h 24m 13s - Blackbody curve, mixing colors
0h 24m 59s - Driver for multiple color
0h 26m 54s - Commercial fixtures are variable voltage and current driven, but are about 36V output
0h 29m 37s - <70 Hz is epileptic issues
0h 31m 15s - 120Hz flicker drives CA regulations
0h 31m 28s - Andrew had a crowdfunding campaign for Faust, a high end LED fixture for growing plants
0h 32m 6s - This ran (and was unsuccessful in funding) on Indiegogo
0h 36m 5s - Chicago aquaponics
0h 39m 3s - Nat’l Geo article about growing food in greenhouses
0h 39m 26s - Teardown Portland
0h 43m 45s - Josh Lifton started Teardown
0h 44m 41s - Joe Grand will be giving a talk
0h 45m 11s - Bunnie will be giving a talk
0h 45m 18s - Chris will be giving a KiCad workshop as well at ToorCamp
0h 46m 27s - Andrew wrote a blog post about the art process
0h 47m 18s - Andrew will be going to OHS, Superconference
0h 48m 3s - 2018 Open Hardware Summit
0h 48m 51s - Whitney Merrill talking about Badgelife
0h 50m 15s - Kerry Sharfglass about building a badge
0h 52m 33s - Hackaday prize
0h 55m 10s - Andrew will be building a “Bus Tracker”
0h 56m 52s - Andrew was on “Call In show 3”
0h 58m 57s - Andrew writes for Supplyframe Hardware
1h 0m 24s - Follow Andrew on Twitter as @JunesPHD
1h 0m 41s
Friday Hack Chat: Circuit Board Art — Hackaday
We are now in a golden age of printed circuit boards. It wasn’t too long ago that making your own circuit boards either involved a lot of money, or slightly less money and using some proprietary garbage PCB layout tool. 394 more words
Dublin Unconference Roundup: The Topics That are Hot Right Now
the Hackaday Community from across Ireland and other parts of Europe poured into the performance hall at Dublin’s Project Arts Centre for a massive collection of talks.
via Dublin Unconference Roundup: The Topics That are Hot Right Now
Workshops Announced For Hackaday Belgrade
Hackaday is hosting a full conference in Belgrade, Serbia, on 26 May. Today we’re excited to announce the workshops that will take place at Hackaday Belgrade. 419 more words
OSH Park 