Re: gEDA-user: US Distributor for Balloon Board
On 4/5/2011 7:46 PM, John Griessen wrote: On 04/05/2011 09:04 AM, Patrick Doyle wrote: Hi Rick, The GA144 sounds quite interesting for a very specific application that may be coming down the pike pretty soon, but I don't have any good killer app ideas for it. On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 9:47 AM, rickmangnuarm.g...@arius.com wrote: Does this sound interesting to you? I also have an interest in testing the Green Arrays GA144 multiprocessor. This device has 144 processors running at 666 MIPS each consuming less than a Watt with all running full bore. They are async processors and stop on a dime when waiting for input dropping power consumption to virtually nothing I'm on the GA144 interested list, but not a peep out of Greg Bailey since November when they were proposing bootstrapping by asking for preorders of 10 chips/$100. I believe the $100 is just the deposit and the total price is $200 per 10 chips. I expect the production price will be much less, but I don't know for sure. They have prototyped a GA4 and a GA32 I believe. These will certainly cost much less. They've been working with no income so far. I'm not in a position to gamble on seeing if colorforth/greenarray-forth runs on a linux box until they get flow... Many of C Moore's chip projects have stalled and never become a viable product. Hope this one does though. Heard anything since November? John Griessen They have been updating the web page periodically. They currently have received some thousands of chips and are in the process of developing tests. From Chuck Moore's blog, Here's GreenArrays' latest receipt of GA144 chips: 12 wafers; 14561 chips; 2,096,784 computers. I seem to recall that a wafer costs roughly $1000 to process and assuming close to 90% yield that would put the raw chip cost below $1 each for the GA144. I have confidence that they will develop useful chips. My concerns have more to do with the business aspects. There are a couple of issues about the company, for example, they should have a pretty clear idea of target applications. I have read little about this. I would also expect more app notes and even the fact that they received chips but are not ready to test them concerns me. It all rather reminds me of Ross Perot's run for the presidency. I hope I am wrong. I think these devices are unique in the computing world and may be the start of a new paradigm in embedded systems. BTW, this is rather off topic here. Perhaps anyone who wishes to continue this discussion should take it up in the comp.lang.forth newsgroup? Rick ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: zview/ngscope
Kai-Martin Knaak k...@lilalaser.de writes: Specifically, the suite misses a way for fast turnaround of schematic modification, simulation and display. make -- Stephan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Footprint/symbol generating scripts + question
I'm working on a largish project involving all sorts of tiny SMD stuff, such as BGA's, connectors, ULLGA6 and similar PCB footprints. In order to save myself work, I cobbled together a few bash scripts to generate the regular pad patterns. These can be manually edited afterwards, e.g. to define an outline, or to add or remove pads. This one creates one or two columns of rectangular pads: http://www.linetec.nl/electronics/smdmake And this one makes a BGA footprint, with an optional outline: http://www.linetec.nl/electronics/bgamake If anyone thinks they're useful: enjoy. And of course comments and/or improvements are welcome too. The most notable thing is that I decided to use microns rather than millimeters, since floating point operations aren't exactly bash' forte. I also have scripts to generate a gschem symbol (two columns of pins) based on pin names and numbers copy/pasted from PDF datasheets; another one creates a list of nets by the same method -- but those two aren't quite finished yet, and require some more manual editing. Still, they saved me a huge amount of time, and also prevent errors in pin name or number designations. If anyone is interested in those, I'll try to complete them and put them online as well. One last question: the project I'm working on has several schematic pages, with several nets spanning multiple pages. For me, this is the first project of this size, and I wondered about one thing: Are there special symbols to indicate nets connected to other schematic pages? In the reference design on which this project is based (probably made in OrCAD), those nets have double arrows, but I can't find anything similar in gschem. So now I have quite a few nets ending in little red squares, giving the impression that they're open-ended. The actual connection is there, of course, so it's more of a cosmetic issue, but I have the feeling that this is not how it's supposed to look. Thanks already, Best regards, Richard Rasker ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Footprint/symbol generating scripts + question
Richard Rasker ras...@linetec.nl writes: One last question: the project I'm working on has several schematic pages, with several nets spanning multiple pages. For me, this is the first project of this size, and I wondered about one thing: Are there special symbols to indicate nets connected to other schematic pages? In the reference design on which this project is based (probably made in OrCAD), those nets have double arrows, but I can't find anything similar in gschem. So now I have quite a few nets ending in little red squares, giving the impression that they're open-ended. The actual connection is there, of course, so it's more of a cosmetic issue, but I have the feeling that this is not how it's supposed to look. You could draw a bus, and connect the nets to a bus. The bus could be labeled with the sheet the nets connect to. All this is just cosmetics, though. -- Stephan ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Split ground planes and zero ohm jumpers
On Tue, 5 Apr 2011 22:30:33 +0200 Markus Traidl g...@traidl.de wrote: The library department at my company defined a special component for that purpose. We have a 2, 3 or 4 Star Symbol for that. To that symbol a special footprint will be attached where the pins are connected. The component is a smd device and I can place it in the layout at the top or bottom side. Yes. But the CAD software you use have the concept of starpoint. gEDA doesn't. I thought that we could make a footpirnt with pads on top of each other, but that would bring more problems in than actually it solves. So far, the best option is to place a real component, and short it with a line, or physically with a solder blob. I prefer a 0603 resistor. Later I can cut the wires, and solder a 0Ohm...etc. For mass production, one can just let out the resistor from the BOM. When I used the CR5000 at my former job, we had lot's of troubles with starpoints. I think the workaround in gEDA is still a good way to go. Levente -- Kovacs Levente leventel...@gmail.com Voice: +36705071002 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: New mass attribute tool: gattrib_csv
On 4/5/2011 7:04 PM, geda-user-requ...@moria.seul.org wrote: Wouldn't it be desirable to somehow treat slotted and split symbols as one entity? E.g. there should be just one footprint attribute for all of them. slotted and split symbols are treated as one entity unless a selected property of the splits or slots selected by the filter differs from the others by the same refdes. If the differing attributes were not intended, this can be corrected easily enough in the spreadsheet, but the tool does not force or assume the data to be the same which would corrupt data if false. ~Joshua ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: PCB: Isolated snippets of ground planes in the middle
Hello, is it possible to fill all the space between tracks, pins, etc with copper? The FAQ says: Since version 20070208 of pcb the resulting polygon will be one contiguous piece. Isolated snippets are removed. But I want exactly this behavior in order to save chemicals while etching. For example, if there is a rectangle drawn with lines, and a polygon around it, i want the area inside the rectangle of lines automatically filled, too. Has someone an Idea how to manage this? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: PCB: Isolated snippets of ground planes in the middle
You need to change the fullpoly flag for the relevent polygons. I can't find any way to do it in the gui (other than recreating the polygon with new polygons are full checked) but you can edit the .pcb file and add the fullpoly flag to your polygon. Polygon(clearpoly) ( [95000 142500] [152500 142500] [152500 185000] [95000 185000] ) Polygon(clearpoly,fullpoly) ( [185000 172500] [135000 172500] [135000 215000] [185000 215000] ) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: zview/ngscope
On 4/6/11 3:01 AM, Stephan Boettcher wrote: Specifically, the suite misses a way for fast turnaround of schematic modification, simulation and display. make Exactly. -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: zview/ngscope
On Apr 6, 2011, at 8:26 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: On 4/6/11 3:01 AM, Stephan Boettcher wrote: Specifically, the suite misses a way for fast turnaround of schematic modification, simulation and display. make Exactly. Especially for simulation, where you very often aren't just running the simulator itself. You may need to process netlists with spicepp.pl or some other script, to fix SPICE dialect dependencies or other problems. You may need to generate stimulus files or command files. You may need to update subcircuit libraries before simulating. You may need to postprocess the simulation data to extract the information you seek. The simulation may be part of some larger process. For example the final product may be a report containing plots or other data generated from simulations. This is one place where gEDA's modular toolkit approach really shines. It saves me an enormous amount of time relative to the more integrated tools I once used. One really nice thing about makefiles is that while I often forget how to make some data product, the makefile doesn't. John Doty Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd. http://www.noqsi.com/ j...@noqsi.com ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: PCB: Isolated snippets of ground planes in the middle
On Wed, 2011-04-06 at 09:47 -0400, DJ Delorie wrote: You need to change the fullpoly flag for the relevent polygons. I can't find any way to do it in the gui (other than recreating the polygon with new polygons are full checked) but you can edit the .pcb file and add the fullpoly flag to your polygon. Polygon(clearpoly) ( [95000 142500] [152500 142500] [152500 185000] [95000 185000] ) Polygon(clearpoly,fullpoly) ( [185000 172500] [135000 172500] [135000 215000] [185000 215000] ) Just beware that PCB will not track the connectivity of the remaining pieces properly, and this can lead to all manner of badness. My pours branch attempts to address this, but as I started it before I knew of the fullpoly flag, I've not yet made the changes in behaviour conditional on that flag. -- 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!) Tel: +44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me) 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: Split ground planes and zero ohm jumpers
Kovacs Levente wrote: I think the workaround in gEDA is still a good way to go. The bogus DRC error potentially masks erroneous connections between the planes elsewhere. What, if there was a way to flag a track as don't look for connectivity check? You'd attach the flag to the segment that bridges the domains. That way, the DRC check would still be sensitive to violations at other places. Such a DRCignore flag might have more legitimate uses. E.g, the outline lines may be be marked like this if vias deliberately hang over the edge of the board. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Sorta OT: What kind of paper is used for owners manuals?
I want to print up some owners manuals for some things I'm selling but I don't know what type of paper it is that is normally used for this. The paper is slightly thicker than regular copy paper but it also looks like the paper is a different material. I'm not talking about the high quality gloss manuals, but the regular paper ones. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Split ground planes and zero ohm jumpers
What, if there was a way to flag a track as don't look for connectivity check? You'd attach the flag to the segment that bridges the domains. That way, the DRC check would still be sensitive to violations at other places. Such a DRCignore flag might have more legitimate uses. E.g, the outline lines may be be marked like this if vias deliberately hang over the edge of the board. It would certainly be useful - I'd use it on just about every board I lay out. This idea is close to what was discussed in January 24-28 in the thread gEDA-user: gschem: directly connecting two nets? ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Sorta OT: What kind of paper is used for owners manuals?
Normal paper is about 90 g/m^2 (or gsm.) I'd take a guess that it's slightly more expensive, perhaps 130 g/m^2? On 6 April 2011 22:49, yamazakir2 [1]yamazak...@gmail.com wrote: I want to print up some owners manuals for some things I'm selling but I don't know what type of paper it is that is normally used for this. The paper is slightly thicker than regular copy paper but it also looks like the paper is a different material. I'm not talking about the high quality gloss manuals, but the regular paper ones. ___ geda-user mailing list [2]geda-user@moria.seul.org [3]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:yamazak...@gmail.com 2. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 3. 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: Sorta OT: What kind of paper is used for owners manuals?
It's definitely heavier, but it seems like the material is a bit different too. On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Thomas Oldbury toldb...@gmail.com wrote: Normal paper is about 90 g/m^2 (or gsm.) I'd take a guess that it's slightly more expensive, perhaps 130 g/m^2? On 6 April 2011 22:49, yamazakir2 [1]yamazak...@gmail.com wrote: I want to print up some owners manuals for some things I'm selling but I don't know what type of paper it is that is normally used for this. The paper is slightly thicker than regular copy paper but it also looks like the paper is a different material. I'm not talking about the high quality gloss manuals, but the regular paper ones. ___ geda-user mailing list [2]geda-user@moria.seul.org [3]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:yamazak...@gmail.com 2. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 3. 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 mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Split ground planes and zero ohm jumpers
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:41 PM, Kai-Martin Knaak k...@lilalaser.de wrote: Kovacs Levente wrote: I think the workaround in gEDA is still a good way to go. The bogus DRC error potentially masks erroneous connections between the planes elsewhere. What, if there was a way to flag a track as don't look for connectivity check? You'd attach the flag to the segment that bridges the domains. That way, the DRC check would still be sensitive to violations at other places. Such a DRCignore flag might have more legitimate uses. E.g, the outline lines may be be marked like this if vias deliberately hang over the edge of the board. Yes, but then if I forgot that track for a given isolated ground plane, there would be no netlist error. That's why I was thinking more along the lines of a component that can exist on any layer. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Split ground planes and zero ohm jumpers
On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 2:51 PM, Stephen Ecob silicon.on.inspirat...@gmail.com wrote: What, if there was a way to flag a track as don't look for connectivity check? You'd attach the flag to the segment that bridges the domains. That way, the DRC check would still be sensitive to violations at other places. Such a DRCignore flag might have more legitimate uses. E.g, the outline lines may be be marked like this if vias deliberately hang over the edge of the board. It would certainly be useful - I'd use it on just about every board I lay out. This idea is close to what was discussed in January 24-28 in the thread gEDA-user: gschem: directly connecting two nets? The thread seems to be discussing a slightly different topic. From what I gather, a schematic has two nets, say VCC2V5 and VCCAUX. At some point, you just want to bridge the two so that VCC2V5 is providing VCCAUX. When transitioning over to PCB from gschem, there is then no difference between connecting a component to VCC2V5 or VCCAUX. The use case I'm talking about, you have two nets, say GND and AGND1 which are two planes that are connected at a single point. Connecting a component on the AGND1 side is different that connecting a component on the GND side. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Sorta OT: What kind of paper is used for owners manuals?
This is good question. There are many variables which to consider. I'll suggest to get whitest paper you can find. Good white reference is glossy white inkjet photopaper. Comparing with it it is posible to see which paper is yellow and which is white. Also lightning changes the color so thats why you need reference. Next thing is to find spotless paper. Thickness and gloss gives smoother opacity and you don't get that much see through spots. Third thing is gloss. If you are going to put colorful pictures, use more glossy paper. The downside is printer requirements rise with gloss. Last thing is weight. Personally I prefer 100g/m² as normal is 80g/m² and eco green is 75g/m². Weight means thickness and thickness on edge means papercuts. And if you can get chlorine and sulphite free paper, those will last 25+ years. And the most important part is to put cover to your manual. Use cardboard or some durable material. I usually use 250g/m² grey cardboard. It gives nice contrast and is durable. Last thing you might consider is coated papers. Problem is that many good pigment coated papers are hard to print. Home and office printers don't often give good results. My opinnion is that once you have found good paper, buy it and find good printing place and take your own papers with you, That gives also some more options. If your manual will end up to industrial environments where grease and spills are threathning your manual, select palstic coated paper. Printing will need lot of skills then. But even if you had world's best paper, layout of your manual can make it unpleasent to read :) BR, Hannu Vuolasaho Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 14:49:08 -0700 From: yamazak...@gmail.com To: geda-user@moria.seul.org Subject: gEDA-user: Sorta OT: What kind of paper is used for owners manuals? I want to print up some owners manuals for some things I'm selling but I don't know what type of paper it is that is normally used for this. The paper is slightly thicker than regular copy paper but it also looks like the paper is a different material. I'm not talking about the high quality gloss manuals, but the regular paper ones. ___ 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: Footprint/symbol generating scripts + question
(having not seen this post) I created something similar yesterday in python. It only does SMD dual column footprints with an outline - and at the moment only takes mm. I'll push it to github or something like that if folks are interested. I assumed at the time that this sort of tool must get made all the time - but not having net access to search for one I thought I'd have a go at it too :P On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 9:22 PM, Stephan Boettcher [1]boettc...@physik.uni-kiel.de wrote: Richard Rasker [2]ras...@linetec.nl writes: One last question: the project I'm working on has several schematic pages, with several nets spanning multiple pages. For me, this is the first project of this size, and I wondered about one thing: Are there special symbols to indicate nets connected to other schematic pages? In the reference design on which this project is based (probably made in OrCAD), those nets have double arrows, but I can't find anything similar in gschem. So now I have quite a few nets ending in little red squares, giving the impression that they're open-ended. The actual connection is there, of course, so it's more of a cosmetic issue, but I have the feeling that this is not how it's supposed to look. You could draw a bus, and connect the nets to a bus. The bus could be labeled with the sheet the nets connect to. All this is just cosmetics, though. -- Stephan ___ geda-user mailing list [3]geda-user@moria.seul.org [4]http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user References 1. mailto:boettc...@physik.uni-kiel.de 2. mailto:ras...@linetec.nl 3. mailto:geda-user@moria.seul.org 4. 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: Footprint/symbol generating scripts + question
(having not seen this post) I created something similar yesterday in python. It only does SMD dual column footprints with an outline - and at the moment only takes mm. Seems to be a popular thing to do. I did one a while ago, and mine wasnt the first either... http://www.gedasymbols.org/user/dj_delorie/tools/dilpad.html ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: inherited attribute
Hello, How the inherited attributes are entered in components? I couldn't find any information. I modified some preexisting component and then entered new name, footprint etc. If check the box of inherited attributes they show grayed but they are there. will they be disabled if the box is left unchecked? Or need to be totally removed? Vinny ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Split ground planes and zero ohm jumpers
On 04/06/2011 05:16 PM, Russell Dill wrote: The use case I'm talking about, you have two nets, say GND and AGND1 which are two planes that are connected at a single point. Connecting a component on the AGND1 side is different that connecting a component on the GND side. Yes, Levente's way of handling that after the fact is practical and what I like to do, since then you keep all your DRC's working against error, and have one more step to do after DRC complete. Perhaps that method could be scripted with a makefile? Can commands from a script make a layer invisible and not part of DRCs? If so, then the starpoint connecting copper could be on a special layer for that purpose alone, and merged in by using visibility or not. Else merge it in with gerbv as RS274-X only. John -- Ecosensory Austin TX ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
