Making chassis overlays with a Cameo

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Teletypeguy posted a simple how-to on making chassis overlays with a Cameo:

After finally getting stencils working with my Cameo cutter, I wanted to try making chassis overlays. Over the years I have spent good money getting polycarbonate overlays (7 to 10-mil) with rear silkscreen for connector identification and such, a flood-fill color, backed with 3M 467 adhesive, and die-cut with all the openings and outer shape. It’s a great way to allow multiple overlays to work for different products using a single chassis with a flexible common hole pattern, but pricey.

Via the forum.

Laser-cut records made from wood

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Here’s the world’s first Laser-cut records made from wood by Amanda Ghassaei:

You can now turn your favourite music downloads into playable records made from materials you have lying around the house.

Amanda Ghassaei, 24, from San Francisco has created the world’s first laser-cut wooden records using songs from Radiohead and Joy Division.
And the software engineer has made the instructions available to download, making it possible to create your own at home.

Via Adafruit.

Check out the video after the break.

Continue reading “Laser-cut records made from wood”

Atmel Tech on Tour: Bringing hands-on technology training to you

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Xykon writes to let us know about the new Atmel Tech on Tour events:

During this hands-on training, you will learn how to lower the power of your system designs using Atmel microcontrollers (MCUs) in conjunction with our wireless and touch solutions. Many of the lessons you’ll learn will be applicable to a wide variety of applications, such as process control nodes for monitoring and controlling systems used in factories, or general MCU systems requiring both wireless and touch user interfaces. Specifically we will focus on a mid-end thermostat that provides basic climate controls with additional sensing, control and interface capabilities. As part of the training, you will be able to walk away with an Atmel SAM4L-EK Evaluation Kit.

You can find the full event agenda here.

Via the forum.

PCB a Week 10: Trifluxx

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Mats continues his challenge of designing one PCB every week.  In week 10 he came up with Trifluxx, a triangular PCB game:

I ended up with using resistor arrays instead of discrete 0805 resistors to save some space and the board can be used for both a sound reactive flasher or some kind of a 1/2/3-player game if the buttons are cut off and connected to the main board by wires. The center of the board will either have a 5mm thru-hole led for the game version or a condenser microphone for the flasher version.

The board is powered by a cr2032 coin cell mounted at the bottom of the board – all other parts are at the top.

Via the project log forum.

USB Infrared Toy free PCB build

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Chris built a USB IR Toy free PCB.  With the USB IR Toy you can use a remote control with your computer, view infrared signals on a logic analyzer, capture and replay remote control buttons.

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.

You can get IR Toy v2 for $22.05, including world wide shipping.

Via the contact form.

Dancing Lego and Five Servos


Pierre Villeneuve writes about his Dancing Lego robot project:

Its based on my Raspberry Pi, five servo motors, and Lego parts stolen from my son’s collection. The robot dances to some pretty groovy music, and there is a special appearance by Lego Batman.

In addition to the Pi, he uses a hardware 16-channel 12-bit PWM controller board from Adafruit to interface with the five servos.

For more info and source code visit Pierre’s Smoked Bits website.

Via the contact form.

Bay Area Maker Faire 2013: ‘Get your stuff made’ presentation

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Great turnout for the Get Your Stuff Made presentation! Ian talked about the ways open source is currently manufactured, and outlined the package we send to Seeed Studio to start a new project.

Thanks to everyone who came to listen!

PSoC 4 Pioneer Kit annotation component file

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If you are getting started with Cypress Semiconductor’s new PSoC 4 Pioneer Kit dev board here’s an interesting addition to the standard IDE. It’s a library of useful annotation components and macros by Cypkees, who describes: “The PSoC 4 Pioneer Kit component is an annotation component with active wire terminals to show how external devices should connect to the Pioneer kit. You can browse PSoC Creator’s library of annotation components and even make your own annotation components if we don’t have something you need. The above video shows the annotation component and some quick examples of how useful it can be.”

The PSoC4 Pioneer Kit library zip file can be downloaded here.

Via Element 14 Community forum.

App note: Build precise S/H Amps for fast 12 Bit ADCs

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An app note from Analog Devices: Build precise S/H Amps for fast 12 Bit ADCs (PDF!)

S/h amplifier circuits will use one of several standard architectures: closed-loop or open-loop, and inverting or noninverting configurations. No matter what circuit type designers employ, they need to incorporate a high-speed amplifier to buffer the input signal and a switch to connect and disconnect the input signal from the hold capacitor. In addition, a FET-input amplifier is needed to buffer the voltage on the hold capacitor and drive an a-d converter.

Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB

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We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service.

This week two random commenters will get a coupon code for the free PCB drawer tomorrow morning. Pick your own PCB.

You get unlimited free PCBs now – finish one and we’ll send you another!

Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:

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App note: In house unit with bluetooth low energy module hardware user guide

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In house unit with bluetooth low energy module hardware user guide (PDF):

This document describes the design details of the In House Unit (IHU) project. It will guide the user to know and start the design based on this IHU board. It gives a clear concept of the entire design.

The IHU design with CSR Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE)module is a platform toevaluate the integration of the BLE module and the AtmelAVR XMEGAmicrocontroller.

The kit offers a fixed inteface with BLE and LCD and demos the basic communication between them. It is quite easy for the user to get started using AVR XMEGA peripherals.

HackManhattan’s Nordic nRF51822 breakout board

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Guan Yang of HackManhattan informs us of his efforts in working with a Bluetooth low energy component:

This amazing component is the Nordic nRF51822 that was released last year and is now available for order from Mouser. It’s a Bluetooth Low Energy system-on-chip that includes a transceiver and a Cortex-M0 microcontroller.

Here’s a breakout board I made for it, using a Johanson balun and chip antenna. It takes a little help from the Internet, but I got it to work with Nordic’s SDK and the gcc-arm-none-eabi toolchain. Haven’t tried debugging yet.
Continue reading “HackManhattan’s Nordic nRF51822 breakout board”

App note: PWM Margining with the MAX34451

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This application note outlines the performance of PWM margining when the MAX34451 is connected to the MAX15041 evaluation (EV) kit:

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) margining is a simple technique to adjust the output voltage of power supplies. This application note discusses the effect of PWM on the power-supply output-voltage noise, the enabling and disabling of PWM, and the impact of the PWM lowpass filter. The MAX34451 system manager and the MAX15041 evaluation (EV) kit are used in this discussion.

NASA Centennial Challenge to test civilian drone/aircraft avoidance systems

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If you need any more confirmation that drones are destined to become a part of everyday civilian life, here it is. NASA has announced the selection of Dayton, Ohio based Development Projects Inc. to manage a new Centennial Challenge prize competition involving unmanned aircraft systems in 2014.

The purpose of the contest, known as the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airspace Operations Challenge (UAS AOC), is to help civilian drones avoid aircraft. Before unpiloted or remotely piloted aircraft can safely operate in the same airspace as other, piloted aircraft, robotic aircraft and their operators will need to demonstrate a high level of operational robustness and the ability to “sense and avoid” other air traffic. The Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airspace Operations Challenge (UAS AOC) is focused on developing some of the key technologies that will make UAS integration into the National Airspace System possible.

The contest will offer prizes totaling $500,000. While Phase I doesn’t begin until Spring, 2014, it’s not too early for serious developers to start their initial research. (We note that interpretation and usage of ADS-B data will play a critical role for participants in Phase I.)

You can read the draft of the competition rules and more in a 16 page PDF available from NASA.