Earlier this year we built the electronic badges for the Open Source Hardware Summit. The badge was very nice as is, but I extended it with a LiPoly battery pack of my own design. The badges were assembled in our... Read more
If you've been following this series, you've likely come to the determination that I've fallen behind, or forgotten about the project. I haven't forgotten, but I have fallen behind. When I last wrote about the project (here), I had examined... Read more
It's a new weekend, and I'm back to my obsession with stepper motors. If you haven't read part one of this series yet, go back and read it here. That's not an order; more of a plea. In any case,... Read more
It's about time for another project. I normally design half a dozen or so small boards per year. It's not my profession. It's just something I do. But I haven't designed or built anything since the "incident" with the photo... Read more
Design rules are rules (imagine that) set in your PCB CAD software that will do one or more of two things. A) They set the limits of the capabilities of the PCB fabrication company you'll use to make your blank... Read more
Power distribution, on a PC board, can come in a number of forms. The three most common methods are You can route power and ground. You can use surface layer floods. You can use internal planes. After component positioning, you’ll... Read more
Not long ago, I designed an Arduino compatible clock board. The board has twelve NeoPixel (digital addressed RGB LEDs) arranged around the board to act as hour hands. The minutes and seconds are represented by an external ring of 60... Read more
I recently ran a batch of my Neo Pixel clock boards through the factory here. It's an Arduino UNO-based design that I made for myself not long ago. It sports an Atmega328P, with bootloader, an FT231X USB chip, and a... Read more
What is the difference between electronics in a robot vs., say, a stationary temperature monitor and control device? For one, if the temperature controller goes haywire, you can pull it off the wall and stomp on it, while you might... Read more
Part numbers are incredibly important, but can also be incredibly annoying and confusing. Obviously, we all need them, but it would be nice if there were some semblance of a standard. Well, there are some standards, like capacitor grades and... Read more
