Re: gEDA-user: Cambridge coding weekend
On Aug 21, 2008, at 6:29 PM, Peter TB Brett wrote: 3. (The big one). Embedding TinyScheme into libgeda, and then ripping out Guile. If all goes as planned, this should result in gschem, gnetlist etc working identically from the users point of view. This stuff will be in a branch, obviously! Check out my 'die-guile-die' branch if you want to see the progress so far [http://repo.or.cz/w/geda-gaf/peter-b.git]. What's the rationale for ditching Guile? I'm not arguing against it, I'm just curious. I've used Guile as an embedded scripting language in a project of my own and didn't have any trouble with it. Some releases are a pain to build on non-Linux platforms, but other than that my results were positive. I will have to take a peek at TinyScheme. 3a. Add a bare-bones Scheme REPL / batch processing app somewhere, aimed at people who want to e.g. do weird and wonderful things to schematics from Makefiles. (If I have time after 3). Now THAT will be neat. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Cambridge coding weekend
On Monday 25 August 2008 07:10:56 Dave McGuire wrote: What's the rationale for ditching Guile? I'm not arguing against it, I'm just curious. I've used Guile as an embedded scripting language in a project of my own and didn't have any trouble with it. Some releases are a pain to build on non-Linux platforms, but other than that my results were positive. More on this on the dev list later today. Peter -- Peter Brett Electronic Systems Engineer Integral Informatics Ltd signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: sparkfun 4 layer boards
On Sat, 2008-08-23 at 11:41 -0500, Mark Rages wrote: On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 12:52 AM, Dave N6NZ [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Eric Brombaugh wrote: What sort of shorts are you seeing? I'm assuming that on a 2-layer board they would ordinarily be pretty easy to correct by appropriate use of an knife. Or are they internal/inaccessible? Is that even possible on a 2-layers? You'd think they'd be easy to find. On the board I blindly assembled, there was a short to the ground plane somewhere. I spent more time than it was worth looking for it, and scraped away at a couple of suspicious spots with an X-acto knife. Never did isolate it. On the second shorted board, it was another short to the power plane somewhere. After I confirmed it, I just marked the board and threw it in the NFG pile. I've had moderate success clearing blind shorts with the 5V bus of a high-power computer power supply. (This can be hazardous to other parts on an assembled board) Otherwise, use a current-limited power supply to put a few amps into the stuck node. Use a millivolt meter to measure different places on it. Lower voltage means closer to the short. Regards, Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] Way back when I used to fix 16K pdp dram cards, Atari STs, Commodores, 4MHz motherboards, :) I used the same technique to 'remove' a shorted component from the 5V rail. Most times it would be a tantalum or a ceramic bypass cap. A dab with a good 5V supply would coax the errant part to 'let its smoke out' expose itself. If it was a TTL or memory chip, the case temp would climb after about 1 sec. Easily detected with a quick hand wipe-over. -- Greg Cunningham [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Poor man's O-scope?
... So, in my not-so-humble opinion, speaking from the standpoint of some experience with these matters: Use eBay to your advantage. Watch your back, read the fine print, know what you are buying, pay very close attention to sellers' feedback ratings and comments, and...get that new oscilloscope for a fraction of what a dealer would charge. This is largely my experience with e-bay, though I haven't used it nearly as many times. Out of nearly 100 purchases, I've never been completely ripped off, and only once was the item more worn than the description implied, though it was still usable. Like Dave emphasized, take a good look at the seller's feedback ratings and especially the comments before you bid, and make sure you know the appropriate price. In some areas, it's not at all uncommon to see bids equal to or higher than you could buy the item for at a regular store, by the time you include shipping costs. Dave, too. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Cambridge coding weekend
On Aug 25, 2008, at 2:46 AM, Peter TB Brett wrote: What's the rationale for ditching Guile? I'm not arguing against it, I'm just curious. I've used Guile as an embedded scripting language in a project of my own and didn't have any trouble with it. Some releases are a pain to build on non-Linux platforms, but other than that my results were positive. More on this on the dev list later today. Would you mind CCing that to this list? I'm not on the dev list (yet). -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: sparkfun 4 layer boards
On Aug 25, 2008, at 8:11 AM, Greg Cunningham wrote: Way back when I used to fix 16K pdp dram cards, I did some of that last night. :) Well, closely related anyway...actually it was a 4K magnetic core memory subsystem for a PDP-8. A 7474 chip on the driver board had apparently reached the end of its useful life. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Need opinion on O-scope
Robert Butts wrote: It's been years so I'm asking everyones input on this scope. The 7854 is controlled by buttons and also an addon keyboard. It's a complex language of control commands to learn. Its advantage is it can use 7xxx series plugins to digitize most anything. tekscopes and tekscopes2 elists help with diagnosing problems. More plusses: * works like a plain analog scope when not digitizing * controls are familiar to many EEs. The minuses are: * 23 to 30 years out of production, so needs help sometimes and it has the longest manual of all 7xxx series scopes. * Most owners of these fix them for themselves, so * only 10MS/second * 7xxx plugins weigh 2 to 5 lbs and need adjusting occasionally * controls are unfamiliar to many young helpers. == I have a 7904a, 7844, 7603 7704 7903. The 7903 quit for no obvious reason last year and I've not debugged int yet. The 7603 was sold on ebay working, but arrived with a power supply problem after the ride. The 7704 cam free at a garage sale and has odd problems with the backplane connectors not debugged fully yet. So two out of five work and are in the lab. The others hang out on shelves and one in the attic. I love old attic stuff! = Something for you to consider is new screenless scopes that can be controlled over ethernet or some data bus with labview or generically via software. That would give you some good accessibility. Even those will cost 5X of an old Tek scope on ebay. Just buy one form a person that can and will test it and one that works. I don't think much along these lines exist yet though... John Griessen PS the 7844 and7904a are fabulous and in use, and I have probes galore for them that would have cost $10K inmore recent scope types ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Another PCB from the gEDA tool flow
A tiny little SMD board for use with FPGA development systems. Fabbed at BatchPCB - I ordered 5, they sent me 10. Haven't fully tested it yet, but powering it up didn't let out any magic smoke. http://members.cox.net/ebrombaugh1/synth/audiodac/index.html Eric ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: How to generate fine PDF gschem schematics?
I plan to present some schematics on my homepage visible for people which do not have gEDA or a PostScript viewer installed. So I have to generate PDF. It's not easy. I made a print to file with A4 paper format, then tried ps2pdf and pstopdf. ps2pdf output is crippled on right side. pstopdf output is OK, but default orientation is portrait, which is not nice for viewing on screen (I have no idea if Acrobat Reader for Windows will rotate automatically, evince can rotate, kpdf not.) Problem may be related to A4 paper format, I think one year ago I have managed to get a correct PDF after many testing, but I think it was not A4 format. EPS export seems to be no alternative solution, because there is no border (white area) at the bottom of the schematic. Does someone know a way to make fine PDF files from A4-shaped schematics (1/sqrt(2) page dimension), preferred output for landscape A4 paper? Best regards Stefan Salewski ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Need opinion on O-scope
Robert Butts wrote: I found an oscilloscope on ebay HI Robert, http://cgi.ebay.com/TEKTRONIX-7844-DUAL-BEAM-OSCILLOSCOPE_W0QQitemZ180280369955QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item180280369955_trkparms=39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A15|240%3A1318_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 I like my 7844 for comparing two traces that are fast. It is two cathode rays in one tube, and you can line up the two, (change their offset), for side by side comparing. The fact that there are two sets of controls on the mainframe is confusing though... As in vertical bay to trigger from selector A and vertical bay to trigger from selector B ... Intensity A and B... Horiz sweep bay selector A and B. There are three 7603's for sale cheap in both rack mount layout and vertical box, ( $70 to $100 shipped), but not from a engineer type seller. The one I have is down at the moment, but people on tekscopes are ready to help me debug it. 7603'sjust have three plugin bays, so they're simple to operate. NOne of the above confusions for you or your helper turning the knobs. You could buy a few as a gamble and pass along the broken ones to whoever is helping you with the physical part of using these scopes with knobs. If you are thinking of turning knobs on plugins and mainframes with a mouth stick, some of them are fairly high torque. The volts/div knobs are high torque. If you want to hire some mods made to a scope you choose, you can ask me. I am in odd jobs mode now after a bankruptcy to pay for some product development. I would rather do some Tek scope repair and checkout than remodeling work. That's closer to spending time in my lab on my ecosensory stuff than refurbishing well-off-folks's homes. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: How to generate fine PDF gschem schematics?
On Tue, 2008-08-26 at 01:58 +0200, Stefan Salewski wrote: I plan to present some schematics on my homepage visible for people which do not have gEDA or a PostScript viewer installed. So I have to generate PDF. It's not easy. I made a print to file with A4 paper format, then tried ps2pdf and pstopdf. ps2pdf output is crippled on right side. I've used ps2pdf without any problems. I'm using gEDA 1.4.x - git versions. I have paper size set to A4 in gschem of course. View comes out landscape, and works in evince + acroread. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: How to generate fine PDF gschem schematics?
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:58:45 +0200, Stefan Salewski wrote: I plan to present some schematics on my homepage visible for people which do not have gEDA or a PostScript viewer installed. Same situation here. I made a print to file with A4 paper format, then tried ps2pdf and pstopdf. ps2pdf output is crippled on right side. I saw this annoying crop too. This is the procedure, that works for me: 1) print to file with options Extends-with-margins and Landscape 2) ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=a4 FILENAME.ps IMHO, the ability to produce PDF directly from gschem is a missing feature. ---(kaimartin)--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak http://lilalaser.de/blog ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: How to generate fine PDF gschem schematics?
On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 01:58:45AM +0200, Stefan Salewski wrote: ps2pdf output is crippled on right side. I've seen similar issues with other software (efax) on Debian systems where /etc/papersize wasn't correct (must be set to a4 if you want to use A4 paper). If you have a Debian or derivative (like Ubuntu or Knoppix), take a look at that file. CU Sascha -- http://sascha.silbe.org/ http://www.infra-silbe.de/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: How to generate fine PDF gschem schematics?
On Aug 25, 2008, at 7:10 PM, Sascha Silbe wrote: On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 01:58:45AM +0200, Stefan Salewski wrote: ps2pdf output is crippled on right side. I've seen similar issues with other software (efax) on Debian systems where /etc/papersize wasn't correct (must be set to a4 if you want to use A4 paper). If you have a Debian or derivative (like Ubuntu or Knoppix), take a look at that file. Another possibility is ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=a4. Global settings don't work for me, as some projects are for inch customers, while others are for mm customers. John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. http://www.noqsi.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Poor man's O-scope?
eBay seems to be where older scopes are sold. Just be a little careful. Look for a photo that shows a trace on the scope. If you see a photo of a scope that is not powered up it may not power up. But you have to figure that with a $100 scope the most you can loose is $100. Yes you can buy one for $200 elsewhere but then you are for sure loosing some money. There are enough scopes on eBay that you can choose who to buy from. Just avoid the ones that say I know nothing about these, sold as- is. That is code words for broken. Buy from someone who at least claims to have used and owned the scope and who answers questions. If you do this it is mostly safe. On Aug 24, 2008, at 1:34 PM, Robert Butts wrote: Does anyone have a good source, other than ebay, for cheap (possibly used or refurbished) oscilloscopes? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Missing trace
I have almost finished debugging the mostly SMT part of my new board. (I'll send DJ a photograph once fully assembled). It's going much better than I thought it would. I have three annoyances due to missing three traces. Backtracking to the schematic they are signals between sheets. I used the add/components/I/O generic/input_1.sym type of off page connection. The net attribute is the same at both ends sig:1 etc. I have many inter-page signals that are correctly linking my 14 sheets so I must have that right. I did have a history of deleting connections to correct DRC errors but o optimize rats always showed the missing connections. Right now o tells me all is okay. I guess I skipped a step, any pointers would be welcome. Regards Ian. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Poor man's O-scope?
Albertson Chris wrote: eBay seems to be where older scopes are sold. Just be a little careful. Look for a photo that shows a trace on the scope. If you see a photo of a scope that is not powered up it may not power up. But you have to figure that with a $100 scope the most you can loose is $100. Yes you can buy one for $200 elsewhere but then you are for sure loosing some money. There are enough scopes on eBay that you can choose who to buy from. Just avoid the ones that say I know nothing about these, sold as- is. That is code words for broken. Buy from someone who at least claims to have used and owned the scope and who answers questions. If you do this it is mostly safe. I mostly agree with that last statement. Although I bought a terminal server once on ebay that was listed as a 16 port ethernet switch, I don't know anything about this, sold as is. I knew what it was from the picture and model number. Clearly the I don't know anything... part was true :) And the as is may have meant my ethernet cables didnt' fit in those funny connectors (DECserver 300's use MMJ connectors for the serial ports). Of course at $15, my total risk was known. I think what others have stated is true that you want to know your risk. I've purchased a number of items in the $40 range where I figured I was willing to risk the $40 for the chance of getting what I wanted. If it were $2,000 I'd be way way more nervous. So far I've had 100% success in getting what I thought I was buying. -Dan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
