None of my boards have any marks on the edges like some one's I've received from the PCB drawer do.
It would be interesting to know what they would do if they found a failed e-test board. just leave like in my case. or mark it to show that it failed. Because I can't see them doubling the lead time to fabricate a new one, and I wouldn't expect them to.
IMO I would have liked to be shown that one of my boards had a defect, if in fact it was e-tested and it did fail.
So ITeadstudio has got quite abit of publicity around about it's cheap PCB service I mean 0.99c for a 5x5cm PCB in minimal quantities is a fantastic price. Interesting how they state that they e-test 100% of your PCBs. I would assume e-testing means a machine probes each connection according to your gerbers and reports faults/shorts/disconnects etc.
So if all 10 of my boards are e-tested how did this happen. [attachment=0]
The two pins are 8mil thick which is well within the specifications of the service. and they haven't been scratched off during my handling (there is still green solder mask above them).
So I know that for 0.99c I can't complain. Heck even a coffee costs more than that these days. But I just thought these were the kind of things e-testing was supposed to stop. I guess I am lucking in the sense that the other two board that I soldered up without checking thoroughly are working just fine.
So it was awhile ago when I posted about my old 8x8 matrix toy. I've finally got around to creating a new version which incorporated an 8x8 bi-colour 3mm LED matrix module. and a controller board the size of the LED module itself. Here is a sped up soldering video. http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MkQzpkjcxQ
Basically using the larger LED display enabled me to fit a coin cell batter on the back. the underside of the PCB houses a MSP430 2kb micro controller, 3x 74hct595's and 16 cathode sinking n-channel mosfets.
I would really like idea as to what to do with this. I've already got it displaying sprites and going into a 0.4µA sleep mode when the button is pressed. I like the idea of creating a variable sided dice (d4,d6,d10,d20), and there are examples of generating random numbers from the uncertainty/difference between the two internal clock sources.
The designs will be open source on my blog eventually.
It appears that the ground fill on the top is the ground layer and on the bottom is the positive rail. be it 5v or 3v3. Z1 does look like a regulator.
I'm only assuming here. but as Z1's tab (usually connected to Vout) is connected to the fill on the top layer and so is a pin on the uSD (a 3v3 device) Z1 would probably be a 3v3 regulator.
U3 is connected to +,- and a leg of the MCU. so Vref? or a dedicated reset/brownout supervisor...
I think itead, or a 3rd party should design a website that just links URL's to the board's docs, to the itead product number, here it would be 06302. as itead already includes this unique number on all of it's boards. it would be an easy way to pair PCB with docs. Maybe a page on the DP wiki could be created..... :D
[quote author="Markus Gritsch"] There are quite some subfolders, and it seems that all of the files are from 2010. Could you please point me to the most recent version? [/quote]
I think all the new bus pirate firmware is in the dangerous proto svn rather than the bus pirate svn. I suppose they tried to centralize everything at some point.
Well I have taken that one step further creating a 20mm by 26mm version using all the same components.(except a micro USB port was used.) 100% pb-free, 100% hand soldered. (Although I want to get a hotplate soon.) If any of you were wondering exactly how small 20x26mm is, well: it's smaller than a postage stamp. (I made a booboo with the backside silkscreen :{. There should be no PGD,PGC,etc labels there. )
I'm not really into coding so I stuck with the two PIC design, one running a CDC stack and then the other running an unmodified Bus pirate source. I would like to attempt this design again using different parts: dual v-regs, bi-colour LEDs, 4x resistor packs, maybe even 0201 parts :? However I think I'll take a look at the V4 hardware first ;D
Hey Nice project, the point to point construction really shrinks down those jumper connections compared to the breadboard setup.
I noticed in the code as part of your brightness matching scheme you use the inline delay_cycle routine would it not be more efficient to use a capture module of the timer so the CPU can be sleeping during a delay. I know that the current consumption of the LEDs when they are lit would far surpass the CPU's consumption but every little bit helps. Just my $0.02
Are you planing to do anything else with it? Maybe an RTC with an alarm :P
Shows what can be achieved when using 12 8x8 displays. I have received a few bicolour 8x8 3mm displays, Still playing around with them. I suppose eventually I want to have a relatively large LED marquee. I suppose we shall see how it develops over time. :D
It has not physical buttons so it increments the display glyph/sting when you cycle the power. the code is a slightly modified version of http://http://tinkerlog.com/howto/64pixels/
[quote author="hak8or"]Oh dear. :P Those tiny 0402 caps are really tiny! They did not look that small when I did my bus pirate with those. Just a quick question, what is the story about that hole above the usb connection on your desk? Your light setup is rather clever. You got some plexiglass and stuck a flashlight on top it seems. What is the unit on the right in your first picture? It resembles a soldering iron station with a hot air connection.[/quote]
I recently bought some 0201 sized caps, now those are freaking tiny, I've found that 0402 are fine if you have some nice small tweezers and a good soldering iron.
The hole isn't actually on my desk. I do my soldering on top of a small square of bench top. The hole is because this particular piece of wood was used as a template for a LED cube I built. It has a black ring around it because my hot air blower has slightly burnt it.
And yes I am using a piece of plexiglass with a flashlight on top. I have found that the white LED light is much easier to solder with over the yellow light form my halogen lamp, It's much cooler as well.
Finally yes that is my soldering station + heat blower. It's only 60w, but I have found that that is quite sufficient for most of my soldering needs. It's also temperature controlled which is nice 160 - 420 degrees centigrade.
