A series of videos from Akiba, creator of FreakLabs, answering questions on the challenges of manufacturing a product in China filmed during AMA on SupplyFX. Via Tindie. Check out the video after the break.
Category Archives: manufacturing
What happened to Motorola
An interesting take on the formation of what todays china mfg is. (via Adafruit blog), h/t Tom Keddie
Tesla Motors: All our patent are belong to you
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors writes: Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology. Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent […]
What happens when a V-groove hits your copper pour
Panelizing multiple PCBs onto a single panel is a cost effective way of prototyping. V-groves are usually used to separate the different PCBs, making it easy to snap them off. The picture above depicts what happens when the V-grove hits a copper pour such as a ground plane. Anyway, back to the topic. You usually […]
Testing the new reduced-sized ICSP connector
This week we received a batch of PCBs and amongst them was the latest revision of our USB TFT breakoutboard. This board is the first board that features a new ICSP footprint, which occupies less space on the PCB and should improve testing and programming times at Seeed.
Indian PCB Association Expo 2012
Viswa wrote to us about his visit to the Indian PCB Association Expo 2012 held in Bangalore. This fall we hope to go to India to check out the electronics markets and open source scene. Preparations are in progress, but it is the most complicated Geek Tour we’ve ever attempted. Viswa has been helping us […]
Seeed Studio tour: People
Here’s just a handful of the Seeed Studio people we have known for years. Many we’ve met at Maker Faires in the US, many we just met for the first time in China. Ian, Kevin, and Eric Pan. Eric is the founder and CEO of Seeed Studio. He’s the guy who makes it possible for […]
Seeed Studio open hardware manufacturing tour
A highlight of our Global Geek Tour to Shenzhen, China was a tour of the Seeed Studio offices and factory. This is where Seeed Studio makes open source hardware, all our open projects pass through here. Seeed has modern, clean offices with a mix of Chinese and international people hanging around. It looks pretty much […]
Bounty for a Bus Blaster v2 self-test app
Bus Blaster v2 is a pain to test at the factory. That is likely holding up the supply. A simple Windows test application would help things along. It’s a very basic app if you’re already setup to work with FTDI chips, but we’re not. To speed things along, we’re offering a bounty for a test […]
What PCB house do you use?
octal started a writes: I wanted to know what PCB house do you use to make your PCB, your opinion about them and (very important) the time it takes to get your PCBs? I’m going to send first batch to Seeedstudio (for their proto service) but want to know if you got better and quicker […]
27C3: File – Print – Electronics
In this presentation from the 27C3 conference held recently in Berlin, Germany, Jeff Gough demonstrates the next step in hardware development, the circuit board printer. As an alternative to dependence on prefab dev boards and kits, Jeff outlines his efforts in reverse engineering an Epson inkjet printer to build a rapid prototyping machine for circuit […]
Seeed’s Pick and Place machine
More about Seeed Studio’s new Pick and Place machine: We don’t want to keep pushing our PCBA factory any more. All factories in Shenzhen prefers quantity to keep their machine running, so small orders will take high setup fee and unnecessary lead time. It might take only half day to assemble 100 pcs Bus Pirate but […]
Extended temperature Bus Pirate
The next batch of Bus Pirate v3b is almost ready. It will ship with bootloader v4.4 and firmware v5.3. It will also be the only known batch of Bus Pirates to use an extended temperature range PIC 24FJ64GA002-E/SS. There weren’t any standard industrial temperature range chips available, so Seeed sourced the extended range version. These […]
Actual values of 10% tolerance resistors
Resistors and other electronic parts are rated to be within a certain percent of the specified value. A 1000 ohm resistor with a ±10% tolerance could have an actual value between 900 and 1100 ohms. So what’s the actual range of values in a bunch of resistors? Due to manufacturing techniques, it might not be […]