RAREblog

I mentioned a few days ago that I'd started to use Fritzing for PCB layout as well as breadboarding, and promised to share my experience of PCB Fabrication Companies for Fritzed designs. Here we go. I needed three iterations for the lobstar board, and I got each one made by a different manufacturer. Three versions of the lobstar FritzingFAB I sent the first iteration (on the left in the picture) to FritzingFAB , the service organised by Fritzing. As you might hope, it's really easy to do from the Fritzing user interface. I was a little over-confident and decided to order two copies of the board. Fritzing charge a set-up fee, and they also charge for postage, so the cost per board is significantly lower if you order multiple boards. Two copies of the board cost £18.90 (including VAT and Postage), and my boards arrived 11 days after I placed the order. The board has black silkscreen on white solder-mask and the solder pads have a lead-free HASL finish. Ragworm I s...

Yesterday I got involved in a couple of discussions on Twitter on two related topics: choosing software for PCB design, and choosing PCB Fab companies to make short runs of prototype boards. I'll write a little about the PCB Fabs in another post. At the risk of having to don flame-proof safety gear, I'll share some of my experience from the last couple of years, and my current preferences. Quick2Wire Analogue Board Disclaimer Please don't expect an exhaustive survey. I don't normally work on Windows, and I don't have a Mac, so this is written from the perspective of a Linux user. That's why I have not tried DesignSPark PCB. Nor have I looked much at KiCad, simply because my first attempts some while ago were discouraging. Eagle and Fritzing The two products that I have used are Eagle and Fritzing. Eagle is very well established as a design tool for amateur and professional users. It's very capable, and has very extensive libraries. Since CAD...

There's a revolution underway in Computer Science education. The Raspberry Pi has generated a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm, but there's also a lot of interesting activity around the Arduino. One great Arduino resource is the Shrimp, a low-cost compatible design aimed at educators and hobbyists with limited budgets. Landing the Shrimp You can find out more on the Shrimping It  blog. It describes ' the Shrimp  – a substitute for the Arduino Uno, which can be constructed for about a tenth of the price of the official board, shown here in stripboard and breadboard versions.' Note the absence of a PCB version! That's deliberate: the idea is that you will lean more, and feel more of a sense of ownership, if you have constructed the shrimp from scratch. That makes sense but I can see two situations where shrimp-catchers might prefer a PCB to work with. Some beginners starting out on their own might feel more confident building a PC...