Business Card Version 1 | GraphsAndWords. The Concept A business card should represent a person’s expertise. My expertise is in creating unique circuit boards, so to celebrate this I wanted to create a USB thumb drive circuit that contains my resume and contact information. This was also a great way to experience coding for USB applications using the Cortex M series of microcontrollers. As a side note, I have done other projects with Cortex M including a simple serial relay and a USB keyboard emulator, but this is the first one that is exciting enough to write about.
The Hardware There are two main components that were required to make a USB Mass Storage Class device (MSC from here on) business card: a USB controller and some non-volatile memory. USB Business Card Schematic This circuit could be laid out in a very small area, but since this is for a business card I decided to make the board a little bigger so that I could silkscreen my name, website, email, and phone number on the front.
USB Business Card Board Layout The Software. Bcard. Bcard is an experimental attempt to make cheap electronic business card on a thin PCB. The main goals are for it to be: cheap not gaudy not stupid My design incorporates a capacitive touch sensor with some blue LEDs around the corners. The blue LEDs are actually mounted upside-down so that the card fluoresces. Cost of parts is about $1.80 in quantities of 25 (at Digi-Key prices). IDK, it's cute. Business Card Version 2 | GraphsAndWords. Introduction Since there is already a write-up on why and how I made the business card project, this post will only detail the changes made since the first version.
If you would like more information on how this project was made and how it works, please visit the original write-up. The initial USB business card was a success in the fact that it worked as a functioning mass storage device in a business card form factor. However, it had a few minor problems which were discussed in the first article, as well as some areas that I thought could use improvement. Changelog The first and probably most obvious change is that the Molex USB connector was replaced by a few exposed traces on the circuit-board itself.
I was against doing this in the original board because of the low quality finish on the boards I was buying. Traditionally, the Cortex M3 uses a 10 pin .05″ pitch connector for programming and debugging. Finally, a few minor connection changes were made. Downloads. DIY Flexible Circuits. I am currently creating flexible circuits for a project I am working on. How to create your own flexible circuit is well documented: The etching instructions I followed can be found here: For my project however I need multiple layers and I also need to integrate several IC's with many small pins. Flexible Circutis & IC's To test whether this was feasable I decided to create small brakout boards for a multiplexer and an atmega. Here you can see the two circuits printed on pyralux using a solid state printer. Once out of the etching solution and cleaned we went about soldering the components.
This is what I learned: - make sure that your circuit design and the IC line up perfectly. . - make the leads as thick as possible. . - tin the connecting elements and some of the surrounding circuitry. . - glue the circuit in place. Top layer with holes Anyway. DIY PCB Drill Press | The Fickle Tinkerer. I have been using 0.8mm tungsten carbide drill bits for quite a while. I use it with a rotary tool free-handed, no drill press. I read all around the internet that these bits are really brittle and should not be used without a press. Well, I have never broken a single bit. Lately, I’ve been wanting to get some smaller bits. I have about 10 pieces of 0.8mm bits from Ebay. Since I had such success with these bits, having 10 of them was rather redundant and wasteful. Thinking about it, I noticed I had a pair of ball bearing drawer slides lying around. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos while I was making this. The pictures pretty much sums up the MDF structure.
Slots were cut on the front piece to accommodate the hose clamps and the clamps errr….clamped the rotary tool in place. I also added a lever to actuate the drill downwards. There you have it. Like this: Like Loading... PCB Quadrotor (Brushless) Quadrotors are the new Segways: a mesmerizing, somewhat magical, self-stabilizing platform that every tech person wants to have. You can't ride a quadrotor (well, maybe you can), but they do fly, and you can build one yourself from scratch! I helped with a previous quadrotor build (Instructable here), and after flying it I decided I wanted to make my own. I had an idea to make a miniature one comprising a single printed circuit board that is both its structural frame and its electronics motherboard. The end result was "4pcb", a 138-gram micro quadrotor. I designed it in EAGLE, soldered it, and tested it over the course of a few months. Here's some video of it flying, after a lot of control tuning (see Step 13) and practice: More flight video in the final Step!
The idea of making a PCB-based quadrotor isn't unique (see links below for other examples), and 4pcb definitely isn't the smallest (see the Picopter Instructable for a really tiny one). Multirotor Frame Kits:HobbyKingArduCopter. Vertical Etching Tank for DIY PCB etching. Background I've been etching my own prototype boards for many years in a glass tray, using a griddle to heat the solution. The large horizontal area of the solution resulted in lots of fumes that were hard to avoid breathing. The boards etched unevenly (due to hotspots of the griddle) and required a lot of hand agitation (and breathing the awful acid fumes).
Etching Vertically I decided to make a vertical etching tray with self-contained heating (aquarium heater) and agitation (aquarium aerator). As I prefer using HCl/Peroxide solution for etching, the air bubbles replenish the solution in addition to agitating it while etching. Benefits - Small footprint, perfect for the hobbyist with a small workshop - Fast, even etching due to better heating and agitation - Less fumes due to smaller area during storage - Easier to vent due to small opening on top - Looks and sounds really cool Safety - READ THIS AND BE SAFE Working with toxic chemicals requires care. Cost and complexity. Electronics Lab - Projects. Steps of DIY PCB Making | Metalworking and Electronics. As I said in the previous post I needed to remake my CNC controller boards. Here’s the work done. Board cutting. Filing. Edge lapping. Wet sandpaper gives great finish to the edges, and makes deburring easier. Cleaning.
Preparing transfer. Iron. Retouch. Etching. Toner cleaning. Tin coating. Checking and correcting. Drilling. Flux coating. Look finished pcbs. Soldering. Mounting. That’s all. Like this: Like Loading... DIY PCB Printing and Etching | andreas siagian. When I was building my installation for the exhibition in Toluca Mexico, I received many helps from a Relder Leguz, a new good friend that I met through Marengla, Marko and Loretta, his wives. One of the helps was to print my own Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) for sonikakustik instruments that I was using to capture acoustic sounds from my installation.
As we were printing our PCB, we decided to make a little documentation and creating a tutorial for anyone to try it themselves. I wrote the same tutorial in Indonesian on lifepatch site. To start the tutorial, here’s the list that’s needed to print your own PCB. Materials: How To: Follow the step bellow in order. Step 1: Print your PCB design on a Transparent plastic film using Laser printer, clean the Screen Print and prepared all materials that you will need. Step 2: Prepare the Photo Emulsion in a dark room. Step 3: Apply the Photo Emulsion, spread it thin using a glass or other tools to your inner side of your Screen Printing. Step 4: Step 5: DIY Arduino or "The DIY-Duino" Nanino – the DIY friendly Arduino | Johan von Konow.
Nanino v08 with prototype area (seen from component side) Description A minimalistic single sided Arduino compatible development board. Features Single sided PCB (easy to manufacture)Arduino compatible form factorLED’s for power and pin 13Easy to access reset switchPrototype areaFTDI Connector for serial communicationOn board crystal with decoupling capsMinimal cost (due to PCB and component count) Development I got a request from a college student in Brazil for a minimalistic Arduino PCB, very similar to a project I worked on a while ago.
Milled PCB Bootloader In order to simplify the layout, the ICSP connector was removed. Upload program to the Nanino The Nanino has a serial interface (ttl level) that is compatible with a standard 5V FTDI cable. Bill of Materials (BOM) component position (seen from component side) Removed features To make a minimalistic single sided board the following things were discarded: Specification 68.5×53.3 [mm] (standard version)4.5-5V DC Assembled Nanino with ATmega328. Reflow soldering | Jim's Projects. Cyclone PCB Factory. Cyclone PCB Factory Documentation Cyclone PCB Factory v2.1 Release status: working Introduction The Cyclone PCB Factory is a 3D-printable CNC Mill released in May 2013. A summary on the Cyclone development can be found in this article. The new Cyclone v2.0 has been released! Video summary of Cyclone, as of Summer 2013: Pictures Milling plexiglass by Martin Zabojnik (video) Dimensions The external dimensions of the Cyclone PCB Factory are approximately 25x30x40 cm (intended footprint was a DIN A4 paper sheet).
The machine is optimized to work with 100x160 PCB boards and has ~3cm of usable Z range. Main improvements The following is a list of the main improvements that this project is developing: Rep-Rap alike, anyone can print the parts and build it Simple implementation of Z height probing to allow high precision milling (see the Software credits for details) Development The development of the Cyclone PCB Factory is hosted on github: Mail list / Forum.