Jan 19

PCBArt

Authors Note: While PCBWay has offered to sponsor a run of the boards, everything purchased for this post was paid for out of pocket and without their knowledge. I wanted to make sure they were good on my own.

Hey All,

I’m a collector. I like to collect things. Video games, Raspberry Pis, Pokemon cards, and Pins. I don’t have many pins, but they really appeal to me. It’s like pixel art. Making awesome designs with limited colors on a small canvas.

The department I work for has always made our own logos for our teams and projects. We usually print stickers and give them out at conferences, or to our students when they hit certain milestones (like their first commit).

Techrangers Logo

A eureka moment hit when PCBWay contacted me this month asking if they could sponsor my next PCB board. I’m not ready to make another PiPlay run of boards (we are slowly working on version 2), but I loved the silkscreen art I was able to put on our original run.

What if I could turn our teams logo into a PCB?

I quickly started investigating and found an awesome plugin for Inkscape called SVG2Shenzen!

I use Inkscape for a lot of things, mostly for setting up projects on the Lasercutter at FamiLAB, but I never thought of using it to create PCBs! The boards came out amazing!

PCBWay

Pros:

  • The boards I received from PCBWay.com blew me away.
  • I was not expecting much for $5 (+ $15 shipping from China).
    • I ordered the boards on Saturday, they shipped them out on Wednesday, and they were in my hands by Friday.
  • The production speed is incredible.
  • They audit every board before you pay and begin production.

Cons:

  • The ordering experience was a little clunky.
    • I had to input my dimensions and order details BEFORE uploading my Gerber files. Other PCB manufacturers usually get order details from the Gerbers.
  • Because I was making pins, I didn’t need anything drilled. This caused the audit to fail, and due to the timezome difference, their message to me and my reply caused a 20 hour delay in production. edit: Adding a note to ignore the drill file for my second order caused it to pass the audit test without delay.

The Pros HEAVILY outweigh the very minor Cons I experienced. I will have zero problem using them from now on for my board needs!

Using SVG2Shenzen

https://github.com/badgeek/svg2shenzhen

Once the plugin is installed, you goto Extensions->Prepare Document and click on Apply.

This will generate a new vector document with layers for each layer of the board. Each layer represents a portion of the boards manufacturing. They are:

  • Drill
    • Parts of the board to be drilled out
    • Example: Holes for a key-chain, or for through hole parts like a resistor or LED
  • F. Silk
    • Front of the board’s silkscreen
  • F.Mask
    • Front of the board mask – I have found that the Mask and Copper should be the same design
  • F. Cu
    • Front of the board copper
  • B. Silk
    • Back of board silkscreen
  • B. Mask
    • Back of board mask – Again I have found that the Mask and Copper should be the same design
  • B. Cu
    • Back of board copper
  • Edge.Cuts
    • This is the shape of your board that will be cutout.

When you are happy with your layout, click on Extensions -> Export Kicad, and click apply.

You will now need to open the generated *.kicad_pcb file in Kicad’s pcb tool pcbnew.

You can check a render of your finished board by going to View->3D Viewer. You can change all the colors and see what your finished board will probably look like. If its good, it’s time for the most important step! Generating your gerbers!

Click on File-> Plot to open up the plotter dialog. Select your output directory, and leave the settings as default for now. Click on Plot and a bunch of files will be generated in that directory. These are the files you send to your manufacturer to generate a PCB for you!

Congrats, you made a board!

Happy Birthday To Me!

On another note… I turned 35 this month. Happy Birthday to Me! I couldn’t have had a happier birthday. Spending a nice day with my Wife and Son, watching the little dude play on a swing-set his Grandpa’s built in our backyard.

Have a good one all! – Shea

Jan 20

Friday Post: Broken Foot

Hey All,

It’s so weird to realize it was my birthday, and it passed by this year with little fanfare from me.  Knowing I’m having a baby in less than 3 months kinda takes your mind off those things.  What is on my mind is my wife broke her foot this week and I am now taking care of my pregnant immobilized love.  Luckily the baby is perfectly fine.  I feel so bad for my wife.  I have broken both arms, and both legs (at separate times), and I can tell you this is no walk in the park.

Everything is still being worked on, just going slow and steady.

Have a good weekend everyone.  Stay safe out there.

-Shea

Jan 09

(Late) Friday Post: and the winner is! Also Monoprice Maker Architect 3D Printer

Hey All!

The winner of the Raspberry Pi Zero giveaway is Aaron!  Congratulations!  I will be emailing you later tonight!

Onto other news.  This has been a hell of a week.  Had a small health scare with my grandmother, so we drove 200 miles yesterday to visit her.  We spent the night and drove back home today.  Hence the late post.  Shes doing better, so phew! 😀

This week I implemented a cool video encoding queuing system using Redis and Django.  The module I used is called Django-RQ, and it makes it super simple to convert your functions into queue-able objects using the @Job decorator.

This Tuesday is my birthday! Woo!  I turn 32.  I’m content.  I also start classes that night.  Yay lol.  I bought this as a gift for myself:

138611

 

It’s a Monoprice Maker Architect 3D Printer for $300.  It’s a major upgrade compared to my Micro, but it takes a lot more to get it going.  I’ve had it for two days and I’ve finally got most of the settings dialed in.

When I went to visit my Grandma I took along my Kinect sensor and used Skanect to scan her, so I was able to quickly print out a very low poly version of her as a bust.

12506821_10104783547948412_992828713_n

The Skanect free version limits exports to only 5000 polygons.  Once I upgrade I can export at full resolution.

Have a good week / weekend all.

Thanks for reading.  I really appreciate it.

-Shea

May 22

Friday Post: Happy 90th Birthday Grandma!

Hey All,

First off, Happy 90th Birthday to my Grandma B!!  Love ya!

It’s been a hectic few weeks.  The migration has gone pretty well.  I have some more stuff to move over, but I’m happy with it.  The server is so powerful.

Mark and I are going to be bringing up a new service for gamebox art soon to help with PiPlay.  I have also been hard at work on some electronics stuff, and Mark has been doing some cool coding.

I’m really looking forward to the next month.  I have been pulled in a lot of directions, took a few breaks, but I think I’m finding the right thing to move forward with.

I can’t wait for the next part of this ride.

Have a good weekend everyone!

-Shea

Jan 17

Friday Post: January

Hey All,

It is the middle of January and it already feels like a year full of events has occurred.  I turned 30.  It’s a weird feeling not being in my twenties anymore.  It will take some getting used too.  I spent my birthday with good friends.

My new computer has been built and is running beautifully.  Had to return the old PSU because one of the fan blades cracked, which was causing it to overheat.  Picked up a Corsair modular PSU and it’s been running 24×7 with no issues.

2014-01-12

PiMAME was featured in the January / February issue of Raspberry Pi Geek.  It was given a 2 page spread, as well as reviews of other gaming environments for the Pi.

RPG_UK_02-2013

 

PyCon 2014

I was notified that I was chosen to give a poster session at this years Python programming conference, PyCon, in Montreal.  I am very excited to be showing off the work I have done with Python and the Raspberry Pi.  It’s going to be April 9th through the 11th.  The past two conferences have been amazing, and I am excited to be able to have more of a role this year. More information is available at us.pycon.org

Adafruit

Back in 2012 I hacked together a crude but effective USB power cord with a switch.  Adafruit is now selling a professionally manufactured cable that does the same thing for only $2.95.

Mine:Photo Jul 22, 4 13 45 PM

Adafruits:1620_MED

 

I’m so glad this cable has finally been made.  It was a pain to hand make them!

Have a great weekend all!  PiMAME news next weekend 😀

 

-Shea

 

Jan 11

Friday Post: Happy Birthday To Me!!

Happy Friday Everyone!!!

Happy Birthday To Me

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I am looking forward to celebrating with a ton of friends.  I feel like the past year has been amazing to me.  Great job, great coworkers, great fiancee, great projects, everything is going great 😉

I am looking forward to what this year is going to bring me.

Monoprice IPS Monitors

CES ended this week, and with it came a lot of announcements.  Monoprice, the amazing company that brings you 99cent HDMI cables, is coming out with their own branded 27″ IPS Monitor. The monitor uses the same panels that Apple and Dell uses, and has a resolution of 2560×1440.  For less than $400!  I’m saving my pennies for this monitor.

Python for Kids

(Full Disclosure: I’m currently technically reviewing a different book from No Starch Press)

At PyCon 2012 I met up with No Starch Press.  They were showing off their new book, “Python for Kids”.  This week a review copy came in the mail.  I have only skimmed through it, but I am liking what I see.  Don’t let the title deceive you, while it is written in a large and easy to read format, the book is aimed at everyone.  I hope to have a full review in the coming weeks.

PiMAME

PiMAME 0.4 is coming VERY soon.  I’m shooting for late Sunday, depending on how hungover I am after my birthday party.  I posted on Reddit and the Raspberry Pi forums that I am looking for help.  If anyone is interested in helping out on the project, send me an email, a comment, a contact-me message, smoke signal, etc.  Just let me know.

That’s all for this week!

Have a great weekend.

-Shea