Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
Any websites that do this? Also, any software to design the box? I know this company will build custom enclosures. [1]http://www.tentec.com/?s=enclosures But you could probably find a metal or sheet metal place closer to you. It all depends on what you need. Typically you will have to draw what you want is some 2D or 3D software, but it really just depends on what the fab shop wants or needs for their process. It can be cheaper if you can do the cad work than for them to charge you labor to convert a drawing or sketch into whatever they need. Matthew -- My homepage. [2]http://sites.google.com/site/matthewsager/home References 1. http://www.tentec.com/?s=enclosures 2. http://sites.google.com/site/matthewsager/home ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: PCB: DRC does not correctly check pad clearance
I'm using PCB 20091103-02 on Ubuntu 10.4. DRC does not find the following simple error. I put an element (footprint: SO8) inside a polygon. One pad is defined as Pad[-13500 -7500 -7000 -7500 2000 1000 3000 1 1 square] It means that the distance between pad and copper is 5 mil. I declare in the Design Rules Checking Minimum copper spacing: 6 mil. When running DRC, the checker finds no violation. It only prompt errors when DRC minimum copper spacing is set to 10 mil. Regards, Zafi. pad-drc.pcb Description: application/pcb-layout ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
If you're looking for production quantities, pretty much every enclosure maker, whether plastic or metal, advertises their willingness to customize. There may be a hefty tooling fee, and they may or may not be interested in small orders. Find a company that makes something similar to what you want and ask. If you can find a standard case that is close to what you want, look for a local machine shop that can modify it to your specs. This is good for moderate quantities, but might be too much for qty. 1 unless you have a friend with a milling machine in his basement. We did this a lot in a previous job I had, where we had typical production quantities between 10 and 200 units. Similarly, some pretty nice cases can be made from drilled and folded sheet steel or aluminum. Those could be fabbed for you by any convenient machine shop. One-time costs will be fairly low, and per-unit prices can be pretty reasonable if you keep the design simple to manufacture. These could be any scale of production from 5 to tens of thousands. If it's one-off or very low quantities, and you have the budget, you could go to one of the many 3-D printing places online, such as Shapeways ([1]www.shapeways.com). You might end up paying $100+ for a case this way, depending on its size, but it will be 100% custom and any shape you can imagine. Similarly, you could assemble a case from laser-cut parts from an outfit like Ponoko ([2]www.ponoko.com). As for software, the mechanical engineers at my workplace design cases in Solidworks. It looks very expensive. :-) Some of the hobbyist-oriented 3-D printing houses accept Google Sketchup, which (I think?) has a no-cost version. A sheet metal case could be designed in any 2-D or 3-D CAD package or even a drawing program if you're careful. Finally, Ponoko accepts Inkscape files, among others. Inkscape is Free (GPL, IIRC) and has both Linux/Unix and Windows versions. Stephen References 1. http://www.shapeways.com/ 2. http://www.ponoko.com/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
Inkscape is also available for the Apple Mac. However the version I use doesn't seem to work as well as the Linux version for some reason. Graheme As for software, the mechanical engineers at my workplace design cases in Solidworks. It looks very expensive. :-) Some of the hobbyist-oriented 3-D printing houses accept Google Sketchup, which (I think?) has a no-cost version. A sheet metal case could be designed in any 2-D or 3-D CAD package or even a drawing program if you're careful. Finally, Ponoko accepts Inkscape files, among others. Inkscape is Free (GPL, IIRC) and has both Linux/Unix and Windows versions. Stephen -- Listen to Paladin by Vicia Faba http://viciafaba.bandcamp.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
Inkscape is also available for the Apple Mac. However the version I use doesn't seem to work as well as the Linux version for some reason. Graheme As for software, the mechanical engineers at my workplace design cases in Solidworks. It looks very expensive. :-) Some of the hobbyist-oriented 3-D printing houses accept Google Sketchup, which (I think?) has a no-cost version. A sheet metal case could be designed in any 2-D or 3-D CAD package or even a drawing program if you're careful. Finally, Ponoko accepts Inkscape files, among others. Inkscape is Free (GPL, IIRC) and has both Linux/Unix and Windows versions. Stephen -- Listen to Paladin by Vicia Faba http://viciafaba.bandcamp.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: inexpensive 2-layer pcb prototypes in 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks?
Any recommendations for a prototype for checking outline, dimensional fit, function, before committing to an expensive fab run of 150? One I'm going to try is batchpcb. DJ must use it. He sent me an example makefile that tailors gerber output names to their process names. Any others like that? for less than a hundred? custompcb.com comes to $106 and they give poor vias... John The old $33 deal from advanced is now a four up, so it's a $132 deal is all... ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: inexpensive 2-layer pcb prototypes in 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks?
On 02/18/11 11:15, DJ Delorie wrote: www.pcb-pool.com www.barebonespcb.com No routing, rectangles only. I need the routing cut so I can check fit. batchpcb.com seems like the thing so far. John ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: inexpensive 2-layer pcb prototypes in 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks?
If you need mask/silk I'd just stick with 33 each... the quality is excellent and even with a minimum quantity of 4, it's not that big of a investment if you plan on doing a 150 board run. On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 9:28 AM, John Griessen j...@ecosensory.com wrote: On 02/18/11 11:15, DJ Delorie wrote: www.pcb-pool.com www.barebonespcb.com No routing, rectangles only. I need the routing cut so I can check fit. batchpcb.com seems like the thing so far. John ___ 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
Re: gEDA-user: polygon regression in pcb+gl
Colin D Bennett wrote: The git history is a litte muddled... When you say it's a little muddled, do you think that if it wasn't rebased constantly that the history would be clearer? Probably. But I am not the one who has to deal with the the development tree. It also makes it nearly impossible to maintain your own branch based off the pcb+gl branch since it will constantly be diverging. On the other hand, it lets the branch track changes of the main trunk. It offers the improvements in main when I use Peters version. Tip: Enabling antialiasing for pcb+gl. Peter C. helped me get this working and it's really nice. If you have a relatively powerful nVidia graphics card on Linux, go to the nvidia control panel Tried it. The result was beautiful, but painfully slow. I guess, my GPU is relatively powerless. ;-) On my faster desktop I run ATI cards for political reason... ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de GPG key:http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
Stephen Trier wrote: As for software, the mechanical engineers at my workplace design cases in Solidworks. It looks very expensive. :-) It is. Even here in academia, where CAD companies generally try to lure future users, the license was a subject of an investment grant. A viable alternative is varicad. (Prices in the hundreds rather than thousends) Some of the hobbyist-oriented 3-D printing houses accept Google Sketchup, which (I think?) has a no-cost version. A sheet metal case could be designed in any 2-D or 3-D CAD package or even a drawing program if you're careful. Finally, Ponoko accepts Inkscape files, among others. A general drawing application should only be a last resort. They tend to be weak when it comes to exact sizes. QCAD has not been mentioned, yet. It is 2D only bu quite capable with that. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de GPG key:http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: inexpensive 2-layer pcb prototypes in 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks?
On 02/18/11 12:12, yamazakir2 wrote: If you need mask/silk I'd just stick with 33 each... the quality is excellent and even with a minimum quantity of 4, it's not that big of a investment if you plan on doing a 150 board run. My board run coming is for an open hardware project with low volume sales potential only and little room for error. What if the prototype run does what it's intended and exposes a flaw before production? Spend another $132? Here's something I found that serves as a good north America channel to chinese fab prices since they have an office in Ottowa. Shipping to USA is cheaper the Europe, and flat rate, so they must be bundling it from China to Ottowa, then reshipping orders. http://www.myropcb.com/online-quote/pcb-prototype-quote/ A single proto board up to 30 sq in. 2-layer seems to cost $52 shipped and may include outline routing. I have a question to them. They answered on question already in about 30 minutes via email. Anyone have experience with myropcb.com? John ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: inexpensive 2-layer pcb prototypes in 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks?
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 12:58 PM, John Griessen j...@ecosensory.com wrote: On 02/18/11 12:12, yamazakir2 wrote: If you need mask/silk I'd just stick with 33 each... the quality is excellent and even with a minimum quantity of 4, it's not that big of a investment if you plan on doing a 150 board run. My board run coming is for an open hardware project with low volume sales potential only and little room for error. What if the prototype run does what it's intended and exposes a flaw before production? Sounds like a good fit for dorkbot: http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pcb_order from the comments: 'anything that can be cut out with a 0.1 routing bit' -- Mark Rages, Engineer Midwest Telecine LLC markra...@midwesttelecine.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: inexpensive 2-layer pcb prototypes in 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks?
I don't know what your profit margins will be like but even if you have a design flaw in the first board the spending another $132 sucks but IMHO shouldn't make or break whether you profit or not given a 150 board run. On my previous project I broke even only selling 6 boards (prototype that was 100% functional - I got lucky). Anyway my point was I don't think $33 is that bad for a low volume run especially since advanced circuits fabs very high quality boards. And no, i don't work for advanced circuits. In fact for my production run I'm using a chinese company. On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 10:58 AM, John Griessen j...@ecosensory.com wrote: On 02/18/11 12:12, yamazakir2 wrote: If you need mask/silk I'd just stick with 33 each... the quality is excellent and even with a minimum quantity of 4, it's not that big of a investment if you plan on doing a 150 board run. My board run coming is for an open hardware project with low volume sales potential only and little room for error. What if the prototype run does what it's intended and exposes a flaw before production? Spend another $132? Here's something I found that serves as a good north America channel to chinese fab prices since they have an office in Ottowa. Shipping to USA is cheaper the Europe, and flat rate, so they must be bundling it from China to Ottowa, then reshipping orders. http://www.myropcb.com/online-quote/pcb-prototype-quote/ A single proto board up to 30 sq in. 2-layer seems to cost $52 shipped and may include outline routing. I have a question to them. They answered on question already in about 30 minutes via email. Anyone have experience with myropcb.com? John ___ 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
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
Let me re-iteraite what i am looking for. I'm looking for mid quantity production run, maybe 50-100. Also looking for a plastic enclosure with nothing fancy, just a box with cutouts for I/O ports. As for the CAD software, I don't need anything robust, just something simple that can make what I described above. Free/open source would be great. On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 10:34 AM, Kai-Martin Knaak kn...@iqo.uni-hannover.de wrote: Stephen Trier wrote: As for software, the mechanical engineers at my workplace design cases in Solidworks. It looks very expensive. :-) It is. Even here in academia, where CAD companies generally try to lure future users, the license was a subject of an investment grant. A viable alternative is varicad. (Prices in the hundreds rather than thousends) Some of the hobbyist-oriented 3-D printing houses accept Google Sketchup, which (I think?) has a no-cost version. A sheet metal case could be designed in any 2-D or 3-D CAD package or even a drawing program if you're careful. Finally, Ponoko accepts Inkscape files, among others. A general drawing application should only be a last resort. They tend to be weak when it comes to exact sizes. QCAD has not been mentioned, yet. It is 2D only bu quite capable with that. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de GPG key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get ___ 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
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 2:24 PM, yamazakir2 yamazak...@gmail.com wrote: Let me re-iteraite what i am looking for. I'm looking for mid quantity production run, maybe 50-100. Also looking for a plastic enclosure with nothing fancy, just a box with cutouts for I/O ports. You could pick up a shlock-box from any place and go with Front Panel Express to make it look good: http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/ -- http://blog.softwaresafety.net/ http://www.designer-iii.com/ http://www.wearablesmartsensors.com/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
On 02/18/11 13:24, yamazakir2 wrote: As for the CAD software, I don't need anything robust, just something simple that can make what I described above. Free/open source would be great. HeeksCAD is very usable 3D. With it you can quickly do booleans to create ports, slots, etc. It uses a 2D layer called sketch frequently to transfer a shape into 3D. You can start with inkscape to make a 2D path for a box gasket, for instance, then transfer that to a surface and extrude it to make a rectangular cross section solid out of it, then cut it from your box and you've got an o-ring groove on the box edge. Then export to STL, STEP, IGES, whatever your CNC uses. Or use HeeksCNC to generate toolpath G code directly, not needing any other software. I have not done a project all the way to CNC yet, but will in a few months. John ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 03:08:27PM -0600, John Griessen wrote: HeeksCAD is very usable 3D. With it you can quickly do booleans to create ports, slots, etc. It uses a 2D layer called sketch frequently to transfer a shape into 3D. If you want to warp ahead a few years worth of development and you have $200, Alibre Design works the same way. -- Ben Jackson AD7GD b...@ben.com http://www.ben.com/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: polygon regression in pcb+gl
On Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:12:36 +0100 Kai-Martin Knaak kn...@iqo.uni-hannover.de wrote: Colin D Bennett wrote: The git history is a litte muddled... When you say it's a little muddled, do you think that if it wasn't rebased constantly that the history would be clearer? Probably. But I am not the one who has to deal with the the development tree. True! I was just wondering if you ran into the same issues I just found with rebasing. It also makes it nearly impossible to maintain your own branch based off the pcb+gl branch since it will constantly be diverging. On the other hand, it lets the branch track changes of the main trunk. It offers the improvements in main when I use Peters version. Well, rebasing is only one way to get changes from the mainline branch (git HEAD). You can also merge from the parent (HEAD), and for any published branches, merging is generally recommended [1]. Merging doesn't rewrite history like rebasing does. However, if it makes life easier for Peter C to use _rebasing_ rather than _merging_, that's great. I just have been maintaining my own trivial branch (2-line patch that still hasn't made it into git HEAD *grumble* https://bugs.launchpad.net/pcb/+bug/699498) based off the pcb+gl branch, but that made the downside of rebasing evident. Anyway, nothing against Peter C's work or his choice of methods to manage his branch. It's all tradeoffs. I think rebasing makes some things quicker but in the long run is messier since you lose track of the exact changes you originally made. That's all I have to say except to end with thanks to Peter Clifton for creating and maintaining the pcb+gl branch, and I hope it goes to mainline soon. [1] The perils of rebasing http://progit.org/book/ch3-6.html#the_perils_of_rebasing. Regards, Colin ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Extract all footprints from a layout
Hi.
I just whipped up a little script to extract all footprints from a
layout (see below). While at it, I noticed that Save_Buffer_To_file
reverses the order of the ElementLine statements on save. The order of
Pads is conserved. Is this deliberate?
---)kaimartin(---
/--
#!/bin/sh
awk '
BEGIN { FS = \ }# use as field separator
$1 ~ /Element\[/ { # if the line is an Element statement
fp_name = $8.fp # extract footprint name from Element statement
print $0 fp_name # print line with Element statement to file
getline # get the next line
while ( $1 != \t) ) { # while line does not start with tab plus )
print $0 fp_name# append the line to file
getline # get the next line
} # end of while loop
print $0 fp_name # append the last line
}
' $1
\-
--
Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895
Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211
Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de
GPG key:http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get
___
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Re: gEDA-user: any place that fabs custom project boxes?
On 02/17/2011 08:33 PM, yamazakir2 wrote: I have never done this before, but I want to fab some customized boxes for some pcbs I'll be making in the future. I want custom dimensions and custom cutouts and custom mounting posts for the pcb. I have used the services of Vinatech Engineering Inc. to design and manufacture the custom sheet metal enclosure for my OSDCU board: http://www.vinatechinc.com/ It was expensive, but the result was truly of professional quality, suitable for a shippable commercial product. You can see pictures here: http://ifctfvax.Harhan.ORG/OpenWAN/OSDCU/ The pictures don't show any internal mounting elements, but the drawings they gave me are on the FTP site; you can look at them to judge the complexity. MS ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Breaking up power planes
I'm just wondering what everyones preferred method of breaking up power/ground planes is. Way back when I used to break them up by using the polygon editor which was really a pain. It seems like using a 0 width trace might work well, but it produces a zero width line on the gerber, bummer. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Extract all footprints from a layout
DJ Delorie wrote: While at it, I noticed that Save_Buffer_To_file reverses the order of the ElementLine statements on save. Is it the loading or the saving that's backwards? We've been intentionally trying to preserve the order of things on load/save (or at least across load/saves) so that source control works better. It is specifically the Save_Buffer_To_file action. To reproduce: 1) open pcb 2) place a footprint that includes lines in silk. Say, SO8 3) copy the footprint to buffer 4) do Save_Buffer_To_file 5) save the layout with file - save_as The saved footprint will have the order of ElementLines in reverse compared to the saved layout (and compared to the original footprint file). Order is preserved if the footprint is loaded to buffer and placed multiple times. Load to buffer and copy buffer to canvas seem to be correct. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak tel: +49-511-762-2895 Universität Hannover, Inst. für Quantenoptik fax: +49-511-762-2211 Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover http://www.iqo.uni-hannover.de GPG key:http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=Knaak+kmkop=get ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
