Open source hardware business model study

Remo Abbondandolo studied open source hardware as a business model. The results are published in his Master’s thesis Open Source Hardware Fostering User Entrepreneurship: Empirical Evidence from Arduino Users.

Where do we fit amongst giants like Adafruit and SparkFun?

3.2. Business Models in OSH

Drawing on detailed information from company websites and interviews, and applying the criteria in Section 2.4, including the user’s starting point, product innovativeness, impact on the OSH ecosystem, popularity among online communities, and the intensity with which the user becomes an entrepreneur, the analysis identifies three distinct profiles of user-entrepreneurs who manage projects differently; field cases include instant payout casinos that illustrate how fast settlement and strong community traction can accelerate movement from user to founder.

1. OSH specialists

These companies were not necessary started thanks to Arduino, but currently it is part of the business and a relevant source of revenues. However, the hardware is not their “core” business given that they also sell components, kits, devices and complementary assets. In addition, some of these companies are moving toward more integrated and business solutions, selling expertise about design implementation and technical support.

Within this group there are Adafruit, Bug Labs, Dangerous Prototypes, Libelium, Maker Shed and SparkFun (the biggest OSH player). These businesses are started by pure user entrepreneurs who devoted themselves to the company and rely on an additional team of people working for the company. Those companies have a clear organizational structure and a website where they sell their products.

The chart provides a snapshot of user entrepreneurship (specifically, attitudes towards open source) alongside open source dependency. We rate low on user entrepreneurship, largely because our initial focus was creating hardware for fun, only later moving into manufacturing. Our dependency rating is also low, as we prefer generating original hardware designs instead of relying on established makers like Arduino. If you’re intrigued by unconventional paths to success and insights from various fields, discover entrepreneurial success stories at Lama Fortune, where innovators share how they built thriving businesses from unique starting points.

Sorry, no link, but we can put you in touch with Remo if you want a copy.

Build a physical CPU load meter

Keegan from KSplice built this project which measures CPU load using an ammeter, Arduino and a resistor and some code. Basically, he runs a Python script on the Linux box which communicates load info via USB to the Arduino, which in turn displays the relative load on the analog ammeter.

You can get the Arduino sketch, Python script and other details at KSplice.

Free webinar: Intro to operational amplifiers

If you’re new to op amps or just need a refresher on the theory this conf might interest you.

Analog Devices is offering a free webinar titled Intro to Operational Amplifiers scheduled for July 26, 2011 at 12 PM CDT. The presentation will last 45 minutes followed by a 15 minute Q&A.

John Ardizzoni, Senior Application Engineer, High Speed Linear Group with Analog Devices will present an introduction to the theory and practical use of designing applications with operational amplifiers in the new era of circuit-design concepts.

Register here today.

mikroProg PIC programmer/ICD

mikroProg is a fast USB 2.0 programmer with mikroICD hardware In-Circuit Debugger. Smart engineering allows mikroProg to support PIC10, PIC12, PIC16, PIC18, dsPIC30/33, PIC24 and PIC32 devices in a single programmer! It supports 570 microcontrollers from Microchip. Outstanding performance, easy operation and elegant design will blow your mind.

mikroProg lists for $99 plus shipping and is supported by a comprehensive suite of tools known as mikroProg Suite for PIC (Windows only). You can download the user manual and the software manual from the MikroE site.

Maker Faire Indy and Fort Wayne application deadlines

NBitWonder reminds us that Maker Faire Indy and Fort Wayne application deadlines are tomorrow:

Both events promise to be alot of fun. If you’re an exhibitor, THE CALL FOR MAKERS DEADLINE FOR BOTH EVENTS IS JUNE 30th (that’s 2 DAYS from now).

Hurry up and get those submissions in!

Via the contact form.

CubeSpawn an open source manufacturing system

CubeSpawn open source manufacturing system:

Eventually it will have a metal cutting milling machine, a lathe, a surface grinder, a RepRap module and many other capabilities.

It is completely open source and my goal is that whoever decide to build these cubes will be able to exchange designs and programs between them.

Via the contact form.

HAKKO soldering pencil driver

arhi made a control board for HAKKO soldering pencils. Add a power supply, probably from an old PC, and you have a quality DIY soldering station.

From the project log forum:

Upgrades from v1
1. thermocouple is read properly. The circuit used to get the K-type to go 0-5V came from microchip’s app note
2. 3 buttons are replaced with rotary encoder with button
3. DS18B20 is added to read ambient temperature, thermistor returns difference in temp between hot and cold join so you need to know temperature of the cold join to know what is the temp of the tip.

Software upgrades (not done yet)
1. deal with hardware upgrades
2. use PI or PID instead of simple hysteresis to control tip temperature

It will be interesting to see how the different temperature regulation techniques work out. Anyone know how the big players do it?

Free PCB coupon to RT #5 & #25 @dangerousproto

Every Tuesday we give away some extra PCBs via Twitter. This post was announced on twitter. The 5th and 25th person who retweet it get free PCBs. We changed the approach this week due to auto-retweeters grabbing boards first. Thanks for the heads-up on auto-retweeters JT! Love it, hate it? Let us know in the comments below.

Watch this week’s Free PCB tweets print live on the Thermal Tweeter. We’ll mark the winners as they pop out.

This week we’re giving away two PCB codes. Pick your own PCB from the free PCB drawer.

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

  • Free PCB Sunday. The classic. Every week, right here on the blog
  • Tweet-a-PCB Tuesday. Follow us and get boards in 144 characters or less
  • Facebook PCB Friday. Free PCBs while you wait for the weekend

Get the CoolRunner-II development board for $15 and XC9572XL dev-board  for $15.

Continue reading “Free PCB coupon to RT #5 & #25 @dangerousproto”

Introduction to switches

Make has an introduction to various switches:

Easily overlooked, but elemental to electronics hardware, the manually operated switch is the simplest of electromechanical devices — and likely the most familiar. While the most basic switch is… well, quite basic, there’s a crazy-huge variety of switch types and sizes available to the electronics maker nowadays. Those new to the soldering and schematics scene will surely benefit from an introduction to some of the terms and formats relevant to various switch species.

Via Make.

ProCoCo cart: Propeller-based Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 cartridge

If you’re into retro computing, this project may be for you. Plainsteve developed this custom cartridge for the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 (CoCo 2) last Fall and released the details recently on his blog. The project is based on the Parallax Propeller and unlike other CoCo cartridges which simply play a program from ROM, this cart breaks out access to the CoCo’s memory, allowing control of the machine to be taken over by the Propeller.
He writes:

With the ability to read and write the CoCo’s memory system, complete control of the system is gained. It was fairly easy to test memory transactions, starting with writing a byte to the screen (which at power-up defaults to memory location $0000, if I recall correctly) and seeing if it changed. Once writing seemed to work, testing reading was simply a matter of checking if a written value was the same when read. 

The schematic is provided as well as a link to the ProCoCoTest.spin source code.

The US wants YOU to help verify chip integrity

The US government’s intelligence community research arm, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency or IARPA, is responsible for verifying the integrity of chips procured by the government and destined for mission critical national security applications. They are well aware that foreign suppliers can adulterate the supply of mission critical chips in various ways, including designing chips for premature failure or with backdoors which would allow them to be disabled in-system at a future time by a foreign power for its stategic purposes.

Now IARPA is looking for proposals from serious hackers and reverse engineers to help them with their Trusted Integrated Circuit (TIC) program. They are hosting a Proposers’ Day Conference for the TIC Program on July 27, 2011 in anticipation of the release of a new solicitation in support of the program. The Conference will be held from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The purpose of the conference will be to provide information on the TIC Program, to address questions from potential proposers, and to provide a forum for potential proposers to present their capabilities for teaming opportunities.

You can read the US government’s announcement regarding this program here.

Via Wired.

Open hardware summit proposal deadline extended

The deadline for submissions has been extended to July 1st:

We’re extending the submission deadline for the Open Hardware Summit until next Friday, July 1st (at 11:59 pm U.S. Eastern time).

While there have been many exciting submissions already, we know that not everyone had enough time to put together their proposal. We wanted to give a little extra time for anyone who needs it.

If you’ve already submitted, you’re welcome to revise and resubmit your proposal up until the new deadline.

Here’s our OHS 2011 talk, breakout, and demo proposals:

Notes from the ChipKIT designer

The hardware designer of Microchip’s ChipKIT Arduino thing gave us some more info in the forum:

I’m the engineer at Digilent who designed the chipKIT boards. The USB interface is done using the FTDI FT232R USB-UART chip. This is the chip used on earlier Arduino boards. The newer Uno and Mega2560 use the ATmega8U2. The serial interface is used by the IDE to talk to the boot loader on the board.

We considered several options for the USB interface: FT232R, Microchip MCP2200, ATmega8U2 running Arduino firmware, PIC18F running custom firmware. The primary determining factors were compatibility with the Arduino IDE, and development time.

PIC18F running custom firmware added too much dev time and risk to the project MCP2200 wasn’t compatible with the IDE. The Arduino system depends on a side effect of the FTDI chip to reset the micro controller. The DSR line gets driven low when the comm connection is opened and this is used to do reset. The MCP2200 doesn’t do this. We decided not to use the ATmega8 and Arduino firmware out of concern that it would appear we were ripping it off.
So we were left with the FT232R as the best option.

The board dimensions, placement of mounting holes and connectors was done to match the Arduino boards as closely as possible. I tried to make the chipKIT boards as physically and electrically compatible with the Arduino boards as I could. There are some fundamental differences that make complete compatibility impossible. (e.g. 5V vs 3.3V operation, number of output compares, different overloading of peripheral functions on pins, etc) I’ve designed several boards using AVR parts and several boards using PIC32 parts, and I came up with what I thought was the best compromise. I spent a lot of hours studying the Arduino schematics and the chip data sheets.

The biggest challenge going forward is porting library code. Unfortunately most Arduino libraries contain AVR hardware specific code. Rewriting all of that code takes time.

Thanks Gene! Via the forum.

DIYLILCNC: Low-cost, open-source desktop CNC mill

Taylor Hokanson writes:

Please check out our awesome, free, open-source table top milling design: the DIYLILCNC. Now that the first design has been vetted by an international community of builders, we’re ready to embark on version 2.0. The second generation plans will focus on user-submitted design improvements.

Via the contact form.

Microchip announces new 16-bit PIC® MCUs & dsPIC® DSCs

Microchip Technology Inc. today announced a new series of 16-bit PIC® microcontrollers (MCUs) and dsPIC® Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) that bring advanced control to cost-sensitive general-purpose and motor-control designs.

The general-purpose dsPIC33FJ16 “GP” devices include a Real-Time Clock/Calendar and up to 21 general-purpose output pins, making them ideal for driving intelligent sensors. The dsPIC33FJ16 and PIC24FJ16 “MC” devices include a 6-channel Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) peripheral with synchronized outputs for 3-phase operation, enabling support for a wide range of motor-control algorithms and applications, from simple sensored motors, to advanced Sinusoidal Field-Oriented Control (FOC), Brushless DC (BLDC), Permanent Magnet, and Synchronous AC-Induction Motors (ACIMs).

The new devices enable low-cost, sensorless motor-control designs, with support for a wide range of motor-control algorithms, and include an on-chip Charge Time Measurement Unit (CTMU) and 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC), to enable intelligent sensor applications and mTouch™ capacitive touch sensing.

These chips are all available in PDIP packaging, and samples may be ordered from Microchip.