Previously, I ordered some boards from IteadStudio, a really cheap PCB manufacurer, and then took a look at the quality of the boards I got back. The only thing I don't like the about Itead is the time it takes to get a board back - three weeks is a long time!
So, I've now ordered two separate order from PCB Fab Express, and I wanted to post my experiences here.
The Specs
Thier 'standard' service offers 2, 4, and 6-layer boards, and they also have a 'barebones' service with no soldermask or silkscreen. I've ordered the standard 2-layer boards, which gets me:
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Submitted by scott on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 10:16
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This info should be somewhere easy to google, but I didn't find it very quickly:
If you get some error messages out of avrdude that look like this:
avrdude: stk500v2_command(): error in CMD_XPROG_SETMODE: Unknown
avrdude: stk600_xprog_program_enable(): CMD_XPROG_SETMODE(XPRG_MODE_PDI) failed
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
this check.
then you need to download AVR Studio on a Windows machine and use it to upgrade your AvrISPmkII to a later firmware to get PDI support.
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Submitted by scott on Thu, 10/13/2011 - 00:07
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I've finally made some real progress on my PoE wall panel. It now has:
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Submitted by scott on Sat, 10/01/2011 - 15:25
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Cheap PCB's?
At the Atlanta Mini-Maker Faire, I had a guy suggest that I try getting boards made through Seeedstudio's or Itead Studio's PCB service. The idea is that you pay them for a board based on some maximum size increments, and they get it made in China and send it back to you. Minimum quantity is 10, but that's ok, since they are really cheap. The 5x5 cm size is only $10. Not $10 per board - just $10.
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Submitted by scott on Sat, 08/27/2011 - 20:46
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Today, I finally sat down and did some maintenance work on my desktop stereo amplifier. It's a Pioneer SA-510, a simple 1980's amplifier. I keep it around for my computer because it keeps working, and has this pretty blue VDF meter.
It's been having some trouble with its input selector switch, and after some failed attempts with contact cleaner, I realized that I was probably never going to need to change inputs ever again anyways. Knowing that I would probably be the last owner of the thing, I opted for semi-destructive solution. I pulled it apart, figured out how the switch worked, and hard-wired it for aux input. You can see the two white wires I used to jumper in place of the switch.
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Submitted by scott on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 01:06
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Recently, I've been on this kick to trying to make my own power-over-ethernet home-automation parts, and toward that goal, I've built a wall panel.
It's got:
- A 160x160 pixel LCD screen
- A motion sensor (not yet working)
- An ambient light sensor (not yet working)
- 10 tactile switches
- An ENC28J60 SPI ethernet controller (kinda working)
- PoE hardware for power
My long-term goals are to get Contiki up and working on this thing, then get a user interface working on it. Currently, I'm working on getting the ethernet controller to play nicely with Contiki.
In the meantime, I've attached some pictures.
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Submitted by scott on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 22:54
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I wanted to play with a graphical LCD. I looked at some modules, like this one from SparkFun or this one from NKC. You might notice that while they're not too expensive, they aren't the cheapest. I have plans to make a few of something, the cost of a bunch of screens was going to add up, and so I looked for a cheaper solution.
I was interested in the way that sparkfun was selling an LCD out of the old Nokia phones. I started looking around, and thinking of what kinds of old, discarded technology I could steal LCD screens from. Then I hit upon the idea of using blackberry screens. So far as I can tell, no one else has actually cracked one open to take the screen out of it.
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Submitted by scott on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 22:17
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After a trying to fix a broken laptop and failing, I ended up with a 128GB SSD drive, and wanted to put it into my Dell Mini 10 netbook. The only problem was that while the SSD was electrically SATA, but didn't have a physical SATA connector. I think this was done because there wasn't a standard for 1.8" SATA connectors at the time. Instead, Toshiba (the SSD manufacturer) used a 24-pin ZIF connector . I looked all over, but couldn't find a commercially-available adapter.
After a bit of looking around, I finally found reference to a Samsung hard drive using the same pinout. I was able to double-check this, as the 4 SATA data lines are pretty obvious on these things - they're in run parallel on boards and on cables, surrounded by GND on all sides.
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Submitted by scott on Sun, 02/27/2011 - 14:47
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Jenn and I (and Stewart) went to go watch the Roosevelt House get imploded this morning at 7:30AM, and we were even awake enough to take pictures. We've got a string of full-resolution pictures, taken at about ½ second intervals, as well as many other pictures from the aftermath. I've posted the good ones to Picasa here:
Roosevelt House Implosion Album
The crews did a really impressive job, as least as far as I can tell, and they brought the building down within the lot. The only effects that we saw was the temporarily closed roads, the giant dust cloud, and one broken window that was probably just bad luck.
Someone else's HD video on Youtube
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Submitted by scott on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 00:45
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A friend of mine bought a lot of these VFD tubes, apparently the same ones used in the Adafruit Industries Ice Tube Clock. (They explain all about how the display works there.)
Since he was getting more of these tube than he'd ever use, I bought two off of him so I could play around with making a clock out of them. Building a clock like the Ice Tube clock seems to easy, so I hope to try to make a PoE clock out of the thing. It should be pretty simple hardware, as I think I can get away without making a boost converter for the 'high voltage' - the tube needs 30 - 70 volts, and power-over-ethernet will give me 48V, so it might just be enough to light the thing up to a reasonable brightness.
The plan from there is that I might make a neat case of some sort, possibly out of aluminum, which would give it the real 'mad scientist' look.
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