Kiran built a free Bus Pirate v3.5 PCB. He programed it using the PICkit 2 PIC programer. He is mostly interested in Bus Pirate’s AVR programing feature, so he can get started with his own Arduino designs.
If you build a free PCB we’ll send you another one! Blog about it, post a picture on Flicker, whatever – we’ll send you a coupon code for the free PCB drawer.
Get your own handy Bus Pirate for $30, including world-wide shipping. Also available from our friendly distributors.
The orange PCB looks great! how come that 3.5 is orange and the SEEED 3.5 are red? arnt they the same PCBs?
Is your monitor/display precisely calibrated to the correct color temperature? For that matter, do you think that the photo above was taken using a calibrated color workflow? The truth is that you cannot rely on color at all, especially not with amateurs taking the photos and amateurs settings up the viewing equipment. Cheap technology makes it possible to share photos around the world in seconds, but that doesn’t mean the quality control is perfect.
i.e. I assume that this is just a red board and the lighting and/or camera settings make it look orange.
I got a free BP 3.5 pcb as well, and its orange. I also have a 3.5b assembled version from Seeed and that one is red… Now my eyes could be playing tricks on me :)
Filip, can you post a picture with both PCBs in single shot so that we can also see what you are seeing.
sure, just be warned its gonna be ugly, I have a really poor mobile phone cam.
I’ll upload it to flicker and post the link here
Can’t be uglier than my mobile. :P
http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3157
actualy I tried to do it and my phone camera is so low quality that the color difs cant be seen. but I will explain it…
My free pcb 3.5 Bus pirate is the exact same color as the pic in this blog post, while the assembled BP 3.5b is the same color as this picture
http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/File:Bpv3-side-450-W250.jpg
The protopcbs from the cheap fab are a much different color than the final production pcbs seeed uses. The production pcbs are also kuch higher quality, but hey, they were made a
100 at a tme nstead of 10 so that is to be expected.
The free pcbs and the proto pcbs in my pics are not the same as the final production pcbs in quality. Also, what rsdio said, i am a terrible photographer and my shots are all over exposed with too bright lghts ;)
If you actually *want* orange PCBs (and I think that’s a fine color), then there are fab houses who offer a selection of colors. Prototron in Redmond doesn’t even charge extra for non-standard colors, and they have a swatch set of 18 colors, including 2 orange and 1 clear (copper).
I just checked out prototron, they have some pretty cool capabilities, any idea on the pricing?
Yes, Prototron has decent pricing if your perspective is a professional company looking to save costs on the prototyping phase of your PCB development. I use them all the time in my work. However, from the point of view of a DIY individual comparing $1/sq.in and $10 options, Prototron is going to look incredibly expensive. I do not know whether they have an official “shop minimum,” but I have never placed an order with them for less than $300. They’re ever so slightly more expensive than Sunstone Circuits in Oregon, who happen to have interactive pricing online that you can check without a request for quote. However, Sunstone will nickel and dime you on every aspect of the design costs, whereas Prototron typically includes electrical testing, color solder resist, color silk screening, and other details with their basic quote. The good thing about Prototron is that they can scale up to production runs, even though they can’t beat ganged panels like the DIY and hobbyist-centric fabs.
clear lacquer for pcbs, that is so cool, It looks like you DIY-ed it but its professionally made. Awesome, Would be cool to do some HF 6 layer boards with BGA in clear coat just to mess with people
My next product release will be 4-layer LPQF with clear solder mask. If Texas Instruments stops making the DSP in LPQF, I’ll probably have to switch to a 6-layer BGA. You might be surprised, though, because it doesn’t actually look like a budget board, because those are usually tinned. Also, with a ground plane in solid copper, these boards look quite unique. The aesthetic goes well with the natural wood case.
I knew the color was differnt because of the overall look. The red PCB’s from SEEED’s production do not have the darker trace boarders; the red ones the boarder of the traces are just a touch darker then the PCB itself. On the orange (just like the OLS) the boarders are much darker then the bright orange. I think that looks good. The OLS has an awesome look. Dont get me wrong the red is sweet too. I would say Orange #1, Red #2, Blue #3….Green = std.