Schazamp got restless waiting for the Sick of Beige version of the Bus Pirate v4, namely V4c, to become available at Seeed. He decided to start a PCB order himself. If you’d like to get one from him, head to the forum and leave him a comment. Nevertheless, I want to order a batch of […]
Category Archives: PCBs
Circuit board assembly at SMA’s German factory
Nerdvana tweetted: Interesting PCB assembly infomercial …similiar to eevblog #264 Via TweetDeck.
Dithered images on PCB silk screen
Earlier we posted the rendering of Mats’ dithered PCB silk screen. They turned out great. Quite a few more are posted in the forum as well. The dithered image on two of the boards that I wrote about earlier turned out rather good – much better than I expected. Via the forum.
Via options: Tenting, capping, plugging, or filling
From comments on our earlier Poision via effect in manufacturing post, Bearmos shared an article about via options in PCB manfacturing: On the PCB side of things, here’s an article from a PCB fab that goes over a couple of the via options: via tenting, caps, and plugs (PDF!). This just landed in my inbox […]
PCB design toolkit update
Here’s an update on the PCB design toolkit we posted about earlier: Saturn PCB Design Toolkit Version 5.8 including the new IPC-2152 Update! Changed the formula for Sr in the IPC-2251 Method of the Bandwidth Calculator IPC-2251 stated formula is in error More work to come on the Signal Properties calculator Added Alron 85N to […]
Dithered images on the PCB’s silk layer
Matseng sent out some PCBs for manufacture with an interesting silk layer. He added the dithered image to the back of the PCB using a Floyd-Steinberg filter on the original to give him an image on the silk layer with a 6 mil pixel size. The PCB in the image above is a rendering made from […]
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 […]
PCB design toolkit
RichF tipped us about a free download from Saturn PCB Design Inc. It’s a collection of calculators to aid your with PCB design. Stuff like via resistance, trace current cappacity, differential pair inductance etc… It incorporates many features that PCB designers and engineers are in regular need of like current capacity of a PCB trace, […]
NEW PROJECT: Sick of Beige standard PCB sizes v1.0
Are you sick of beige project boxes that hide your cool board and hard work? Wouldn’t it be cool if your project was case ready from the first revision? We worked with case designer David Moberly (dsm) to create a case-friendly PCB footprint for all our projects. We call the specification Sick of Beige v1.0. […]
Seeed Studio vs ITead Studio PCB service head to head
Florin made a head to head comparison of Seeed and ITead’s inexpensive PCB services. He made the orders with the same design files, on the same day. While the Seeed order came in after 4 weeks, ITead’s came just 15 days after the order was made. The author however suspects it might have been a […]
App note: creating a Freescale Tower module
The Freescale Tower is a modular development platform using interchangeable and reusable modules to integrate with Freescale MCU boards as well as a selection of over 50 peripheral modules by various manufacturers. In addition to using premanufactured modules, users can create their own custom boards. In this app note Freescale describes how to create your […]
Pads tearing off of PCBs
Voidptr got a board from eBay that may have used an exceptionally cheap PCB. He soldered some pinheaders to the board and with slight pressure the pins flew of the board: I just got this ebay board and got a bad surprise, I soldered the header, did not overheat it I’m pretty sure. Connected few […]
Guess what it is and get a free PCB of it
Matseng made a contest in the forum. If you guess what the PCB is, he’ll send one over. This PCB is exactly the same size as a credit card and have the XMega, a Lipo battery and charger, a MicroUSB for comms and charging, a buttload of tactle switches and a bunch of 7-segment displays […]
Dorkbot PDX PCB Order evolved into OSH Park automated PCB service
The Dorkbot PDX PCB order has evolved into the OSH Park automated PCB service. Same as before, a bunch of people get their boards assembled together on a single PCB fab panel, and get lower costs for manufacturing them. Only now there is an online interface that allows you to upload your Eagle source files, […]
ZofzPCB 3D gerber viewer
A while ago we asked What gerber viewer do you use and why?. The general consensus is that the gerber files need to be checked before you send them go get your PCBs made. ZofzPCB is a gerber viewer geared to make verification quick and easy. It shows the board and layers in 3D so […]
App Note: Mixed signal circuit board layout considerations
Hli located an interesting app note from Cypress called “Mixed Signal Circuit Board Layout Considerations”. “It discusses how to layout a board to have good analog performance, even if you have digital stuff on the same board. Some parts are specific for the Cypress PSoCs, but much of the advice is applicable generally. The PSoCs […]
Robots’ extreme soldering
From IRC we bring you some pics of Robots’ mad soldering skills. This QFN chip is dead-bugged onto the back of another chip. Below there’s another QFN chip broken out with wire. Please send in your pics of extreme soldering via the contact form.
Free PCB backlog cleared
Today we cleared the backlog of free PCBs, more than 50 boards were mailed. We’re sorry for the delay, and we hope to be back on a 10 to 14 day mailing schedule. When we moved to a new office the PCBs were packed early, and they were the last thing to be unpacked. Ian […]
HOW-TO: Make realistic 3D renderings of PCB designs
3D models in Google SketchUp look great, but with a few extra plugins the results can look photo-realistic. In this tutorial we’ll cover our experience with the Maxwell for Google Sketchup rendering plugin. The Maxwell Fire engine is easy to use. It’s integrated directly into SketchUp so you don’t need to open any other application […]
Manually V-score PCBs to break apart multiple designs
Ever use the extra area of a PCB to squeeze in multiple copies of a board? We do, but it’s always a pain to separate them. Doug shows how to how to cut apart multiple PCBs using a utility knife. Via the contact form.