Title: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: matseng on August 03, 2012, 07:37:31 pm
Post by: matseng on August 03, 2012, 07:37:31 pm
This is the 3d-rendered front side and a screenshot of the output from WebGerber of the back side (two of them fits on a 10x10cm seeed board so I did a step&repeat). I ran a Floyd-Steinberg filter of a gif scaled to give a 6 mil pixel size and imported that onto the bPlace silk layer of the board.
Do you think it will turn out as nice as in the screenshot or will it just be a messy blur of f*cked up pixels?
[attachment=0]
[attachment=1]
(The visulizer is a shield displaying the status (hi/lo/hiz) of all pins of an Arduino)
Do you think it will turn out as nice as in the screenshot or will it just be a messy blur of f*cked up pixels?
[attachment=0]
[attachment=1]
(The visulizer is a shield displaying the status (hi/lo/hiz) of all pins of an Arduino)
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: arakis on August 04, 2012, 03:05:55 am
Post by: arakis on August 04, 2012, 03:05:55 am
Very nice, and a cool idea for a project...BTW I can't see the pads for any of the components other then Vias and PTH parts...
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: matseng on August 04, 2012, 03:14:49 am
Post by: matseng on August 04, 2012, 03:14:49 am
arakis That is the bottom of the board, all smd parts are placed on the top. (The leds would be dammed hard to see otherwise :-) )
MickM: Well... According to the "capabilities sheet" from SeeedStudio they claim to be capable of a Minimum Silkscreen Width of 6 mil.
[attachment=1]
So I'll try that first. If it fails it's no big deal since it's of the back side of the board anyways and then I try with a 8 mil pixel size next time.
[attachment=0]
I'll probably not sell the boards as some kind of regular product, I only do them for my own amusement and the joy of routing the PCBs. :-) I probably solder up a few of them and give to local friends. I don't have a proper production line at home and having SeeedStudio do the manufacturing and fulfilment for a small batch would probably cost at least $1000 upfront and the boards might not be so popular....
Maybe doing some kind of preorder system for all my different designs to get a hint of their popularity would be a good idea...
MickM: Well... According to the "capabilities sheet" from SeeedStudio they claim to be capable of a Minimum Silkscreen Width of 6 mil.
[attachment=1]
So I'll try that first. If it fails it's no big deal since it's of the back side of the board anyways and then I try with a 8 mil pixel size next time.
[attachment=0]
I'll probably not sell the boards as some kind of regular product, I only do them for my own amusement and the joy of routing the PCBs. :-) I probably solder up a few of them and give to local friends. I don't have a proper production line at home and having SeeedStudio do the manufacturing and fulfilment for a small batch would probably cost at least $1000 upfront and the boards might not be so popular....
Maybe doing some kind of preorder system for all my different designs to get a hint of their popularity would be a good idea...
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: arupbsk on August 04, 2012, 08:44:40 am
Post by: arupbsk on August 04, 2012, 08:44:40 am
[quote author="matseng"]
Do you think it will turn out as nice as in the screenshot or will it just be a messy blur of f*cked up pixels?
[/quote]
Few months ago, I tried same thing on one of my PCB. I added a bitmap image in the back-silk layer. Below is the result (seeed).
[attachment=0]
Do you think it will turn out as nice as in the screenshot or will it just be a messy blur of f*cked up pixels?
[/quote]
Few months ago, I tried same thing on one of my PCB. I added a bitmap image in the back-silk layer. Below is the result (seeed).
[attachment=0]
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: matseng on August 04, 2012, 01:22:50 pm
Post by: matseng on August 04, 2012, 01:22:50 pm
Mick: Yes, it's really strange what's becoming popular or not. For instance a pcb with a connector and 5 banana jacks is a hit (don't get me wrong here, it is a nice product but I didn't expect it to be popular) and there still are free Part Ninja boards left - strange..
SMD soldering isn't that hard. If you feel confident soldering regular thru hole parts that starting with a small kit with maybe one 8 pin soic and a few 0805 discretes should not be a problem as long as you have a resonably narrow tip on your soldering iron and a solder that is not wider than 0.8 mm. There must be some nice and simple SMD training kits out there...
All parts for the Visulizer are available as standard non-SMD versions as well. The microcontroller is a ATmega8 and the three other chips are 74HC4051 analog multiplexers. The eagle files are available at https://github.com/SmallRoomLabs/Visulizer (https://github.com/SmallRoomLabs/Visulizer) I haven't done any firmware for it yet, I'll do that when I get the PCBs.
Arup: Ah, that looks nice. Considering the width of your copper tracks it looks like the silk is partly not wider than 4-5 mils. It turned out really good. No dithered shadings though on your board, but it seems promising for my board then.
Are you doing the same as me? - Routing the backside of the board in the Eagle TOP-layer so Seeed will put their serial numbers there and not screw up your visible front side of the board?
SMD soldering isn't that hard. If you feel confident soldering regular thru hole parts that starting with a small kit with maybe one 8 pin soic and a few 0805 discretes should not be a problem as long as you have a resonably narrow tip on your soldering iron and a solder that is not wider than 0.8 mm. There must be some nice and simple SMD training kits out there...
All parts for the Visulizer are available as standard non-SMD versions as well. The microcontroller is a ATmega8 and the three other chips are 74HC4051 analog multiplexers. The eagle files are available at https://github.com/SmallRoomLabs/Visulizer (https://github.com/SmallRoomLabs/Visulizer) I haven't done any firmware for it yet, I'll do that when I get the PCBs.
Arup: Ah, that looks nice. Considering the width of your copper tracks it looks like the silk is partly not wider than 4-5 mils. It turned out really good. No dithered shadings though on your board, but it seems promising for my board then.
Are you doing the same as me? - Routing the backside of the board in the Eagle TOP-layer so Seeed will put their serial numbers there and not screw up your visible front side of the board?
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: Squonk on August 04, 2012, 09:03:58 pm
Post by: Squonk on August 04, 2012, 09:03:58 pm
matseng: Nice work! I hope it will go through as expected! Let us know when the boards arrive!
Can you provide some details on how you did this: which tool did you used for Floyd-Steinberg filtering and the step-by-step procedure on how to import this into EagleCAD?
Can you provide some details on how you did this: which tool did you used for Floyd-Steinberg filtering and the step-by-step procedure on how to import this into EagleCAD?
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: matseng on August 05, 2012, 04:22:15 am
Post by: matseng on August 05, 2012, 04:22:15 am
Alea iacta est. (The die is cast) I've just sent the gerbers to Seeed for this and 9 other boards.
Sure, I'll do a writeup with some screenshots of how to do this and also how to do the reverse labels I have on the top. Tomorrow I'll have a 5 hour bus ride back from Singapore Maker Faire so it might be a good way to pass the time...
Sure, I'll do a writeup with some screenshots of how to do this and also how to do the reverse labels I have on the top. Tomorrow I'll have a 5 hour bus ride back from Singapore Maker Faire so it might be a good way to pass the time...
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: Squonk on August 05, 2012, 08:07:31 am
Post by: Squonk on August 05, 2012, 08:07:31 am
καὶ σὺ τέκνον ("You too, my child?")
Thank you! I think I've found a way to filter in Photoshop, but your advice is more than welcomed!
Thank you! I think I've found a way to filter in Photoshop, but your advice is more than welcomed!
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: Destate9 on August 15, 2012, 06:06:46 pm
Post by: Destate9 on August 15, 2012, 06:06:46 pm
Very cool! If it comes back and looks wonky, and you could always try Laen. I know he can do 5 mil pixels for his silkscreens. The downside is that your boards would be purple...
EDIT: Oh wow, nevermind. Laen would be alot more expensive ($25.87 per board compared to $2.49 per board). But, if you REALLY want that smaller pixel size, I guess one could go that route
EDIT: Oh wow, nevermind. Laen would be alot more expensive ($25.87 per board compared to $2.49 per board). But, if you REALLY want that smaller pixel size, I guess one could go that route
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: matseng on August 15, 2012, 06:30:14 pm
Post by: matseng on August 15, 2012, 06:30:14 pm
I'm not completely convinced that purple colored boards with ENIG could be considered a "downside". They look really amazing.
But being 10 times as expensive as the Seeed boards I'm not so sure that it's worth the price. Maybe for one very special board to showcase in a SOB enclosure....
$2.49 is actually only $1.25 since I was able to fit two boards on a 10x10cm pcb :-)
But being 10 times as expensive as the Seeed boards I'm not so sure that it's worth the price. Maybe for one very special board to showcase in a SOB enclosure....
$2.49 is actually only $1.25 since I was able to fit two boards on a 10x10cm pcb :-)
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: arupbsk on August 15, 2012, 06:43:32 pm
Post by: arupbsk on August 15, 2012, 06:43:32 pm
[quote author="matseng"]
Are you doing the same as me? - Routing the backside of the board in the Eagle TOP-layer so Seeed will put their serial numbers there and not screw up your visible front side of the board?[/quote]
I didn't do that. Seeed puts serial numbers in backside (atleast in my two orders they did the same).
Are you doing the same as me? - Routing the backside of the board in the Eagle TOP-layer so Seeed will put their serial numbers there and not screw up your visible front side of the board?[/quote]
I didn't do that. Seeed puts serial numbers in backside (atleast in my two orders they did the same).
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: Destate9 on August 15, 2012, 08:18:43 pm
Post by: Destate9 on August 15, 2012, 08:18:43 pm
[quote author="matseng"]I'm not completely convinced that purple colored boards with ENIG could be considered a "downside". They look really amazing.[/quote]
Yeah, they look very unique, and Laen's a boss, but personally I've used his service a ton over the years. So I've become a bit jaded to the cool look, but I guess it's a personal preference.
And wow. Dat price. I gotta start using Seeed
Yeah, they look very unique, and Laen's a boss, but personally I've used his service a ton over the years. So I've become a bit jaded to the cool look, but I guess it's a personal preference.
And wow. Dat price. I gotta start using Seeed
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: FourthDr on August 15, 2012, 10:56:46 pm
Post by: FourthDr on August 15, 2012, 10:56:46 pm
Matseng & Arupbsk:
Nice silk! Amine, my favorite! :-D I have tried putting logos and images on a my PCB's in eagle without much success. Could you do a simple tutorial on how you did that? Or maybe Arupbsk world? I look forward to seeing the resulting PCB.
Nice silk! Amine, my favorite! :-D I have tried putting logos and images on a my PCB's in eagle without much success. Could you do a simple tutorial on how you did that? Or maybe Arupbsk world? I look forward to seeing the resulting PCB.
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: arupbsk on August 16, 2012, 05:56:31 am
Post by: arupbsk on August 16, 2012, 05:56:31 am
@FourthDr
Have a look at http://www.instructables.com/id/Adding- ... /?ALLSTEPS (http://www.instructables.com/id/Adding-Custom-Graphics-to-EAGLE-PCB-Layouts/?ALLSTEPS)
Have a look at http://www.instructables.com/id/Adding- ... /?ALLSTEPS (http://www.instructables.com/id/Adding-Custom-Graphics-to-EAGLE-PCB-Layouts/?ALLSTEPS)
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: arakis on August 16, 2012, 09:01:45 am
Post by: arakis on August 16, 2012, 09:01:45 am
[quote author="FourthDr"]Matseng & Arupbsk:
Nice silk! Amine, my favorite! :-D I have tried putting logos and images on a my PCB's in eagle without much success. Could you do a simple tutorial on how you did that? Or maybe Arupbsk world? I look forward to seeing the resulting PCB.[/quote]
DP to the rescue :) We have a tutorial for importing B/W bitmaps into Eagle...
http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Cad ... CB_library (http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Cadsoft_Eagle_import_image_BMP_to_PCB_library)
lots of other Tutorials there as well...http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Dan ... _Tutorials (http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Dangerous_Prototypes_Tutorials)
they are a little hard to find, but we have many interesting stuff when you enter Dangerous prototypes Wiki..the "Projects" button at the top of the site, the resoursces start below the projects in development...
Nice silk! Amine, my favorite! :-D I have tried putting logos and images on a my PCB's in eagle without much success. Could you do a simple tutorial on how you did that? Or maybe Arupbsk world? I look forward to seeing the resulting PCB.[/quote]
DP to the rescue :) We have a tutorial for importing B/W bitmaps into Eagle...
http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Cad ... CB_library (http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Cadsoft_Eagle_import_image_BMP_to_PCB_library)
lots of other Tutorials there as well...http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Dan ... _Tutorials (http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Dangerous_Prototypes_Tutorials)
they are a little hard to find, but we have many interesting stuff when you enter Dangerous prototypes Wiki..the "Projects" button at the top of the site, the resoursces start below the projects in development...
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: matseng on August 22, 2012, 10:50:27 am
Post by: matseng on August 22, 2012, 10:50:27 am
[quote author="arupbsk"][quote author="matseng"]
Are you doing the same as me? - Routing the backside of the board in the Eagle TOP-layer so Seeed will put their serial numbers there and not screw up your visible front side of the board?[/quote]
I didn't do that. Seeed puts serial numbers in backside (atleast in my two orders they did the same).[/quote]
Yes, they seem to have started doing that now. It was a while since I used Seeed the last time....
Are you doing the same as me? - Routing the backside of the board in the Eagle TOP-layer so Seeed will put their serial numbers there and not screw up your visible front side of the board?[/quote]
I didn't do that. Seeed puts serial numbers in backside (atleast in my two orders they did the same).[/quote]
Yes, they seem to have started doing that now. It was a while since I used Seeed the last time....
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: Squonk on August 22, 2012, 01:44:19 pm
Post by: Squonk on August 22, 2012, 01:44:19 pm
@matseng: have you received the boards yet?
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: matseng on August 22, 2012, 01:56:56 pm
Post by: matseng on August 22, 2012, 01:56:56 pm
[quote author="Squonk"]@matseng: have you received the boards yet?[/quote]
Yes. I got them today. The DHL shipping took four days extra since the package got stuck in the Eid al Fitr (end of Ramadan) celebrations...
All boards are here: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=4452 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=4452)
Yes. I got them today. The DHL shipping took four days extra since the package got stuck in the Eid al Fitr (end of Ramadan) celebrations...
All boards are here: viewtopic.php?f=56&t=4452 (http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=4452)
Title: Re: Dithered images on silk layer
Post by: jondaddio on September 15, 2012, 03:51:06 pm
Post by: jondaddio on September 15, 2012, 03:51:06 pm
[quote author="matseng"]Sure, I'll do a writeup with some screenshots of how to do this and also how to do the reverse labels I have on the top. Tomorrow I'll have a 5 hour bus ride back from Singapore Maker Faire so it might be a good way to pass the time...[/quote]
I look forward to this writeup. The board with image looks great! Nicely done.
Jon
I look forward to this writeup. The board with image looks great! Nicely done.
Jon