Re: gEDA-user: Open Source mechanical CAD on the horizon
Hi, maybe somehow late but please give openscad [1] a trial. 1. It converts dxf-drawings in 3D Models 2. It uses a language (C style) instead of a GUI to describe 3D models Thus, it might be much closer to the way of gEDA. I'm just on the way to try out how good this works out for 3D printers. Furthermore there is the Mini-T project from Makerbeam [2]. An aluminium profile construction kit. Similar to item or isel but much smaller. It will be somehow the a mixture between fisher-technic toy and T-profiles. Hope this is useful Bye Torsten [1] http://openscad.org/ [2] http://www.makerbeam.com/ 2010/2/25 Kai-Martin Knaak k...@familieknaak.de: I just got aware of the open source mechanical CAD project freecad. It hit the debian repository a month ago. Although it is still lacking important features, much of the basic infrastructure is already up and running. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD_(Juergen_Riegel) ---(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: Need help repairing a damaged FPGA board (GR-PCI-XC2V)
Just a bit OT but: since you refered to students, you might like to check wether the following evaluation kit is suitable for your needs: AVNETs Xilinx® Spartan®-3A Evaluation Kit http://tinyurl.com/avnet-dev-kit Features beside the typical FPGA stuff: somehow open (datasheets, etc. given) an existing forum for user discussions an usb interface for programming (sending the bit file is not done via ISE webpack but with a own software tool) ISE Webpack free edition on CD embedded PSoC chip with CapSens-Button and the necessary programmer (miniprog) for the PSoC. Rather much free I/Os compared to other eval-kits power-over-usb (makes it more difficulte for fry it ;) ) and finally the price the drawbacks as I found them I/O-banks are fixed already to 3.3V logic. less I/Os then a real-developer kit ISE Webpack is not open source ;) However, it cost only 49 dollars. Thus instead of buying (or fix) ONE expensive regular development kit you could propably buy a set of those and hand one to each student. Makes it a bit more redundant. Hope that helps a bit Torsten On 03/02/2010 07:00 AM, Timothy Normand Miller wrote: A relatively new professor here at OSU had one of these FPGA boards: http://www.pender.ch/docs/GR-PCI-XC2V_product_sheet.pdf Unfortunately, some students recently fried part of the power regulation circuit. We don't have the expertise to repair it ourselves, and we don't have the budget to buy something new. This board was being shared by multiple students, one of whom was using it for his masters thesis work. So its loss is rather painful and problematic. I was wondering if anyone could advise us on repairing this. Perhaps there is someone whom we could ask to repair it for us? Trying to get the original manufacturer to repair it would probably cost more than it's worth. The damage was done to at least the C12 and D9 components (lower left in the picture). Any suggestions and help would be most appreciated! ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Latex
Hi, that I don't like though, is image support. Unless I am missing something, images are not actually part of the source doc, but are sucked in and then processed onto the output. Distributing the pdf, for example, doesn't matter since the pictures are included. But for multi-authors, any images have to be included with the article source files. Actually it is like always once disadvantage is considered as the advantage for someone else. In my opinion it make no sense to embedded binary blobs (images) in the source code. Furthermore, if you just have to change the figure, all you have to do is to replace the original figure by a new one (with the same name) and recompile the LaTeX file. You even don't need to open the editor or the source file. This is a real advantage !!! BTW: If you are interested to create figures in the LaTeX way (e.g. schematics representation, block diagrams, etc.) Please try PGF / Tikz. It is a LaTeX package which allows you to program pictures in the same way like you program your text layout. The code is embedded in the LaTeX file and it shares e.g. the text properties with the LaTeX document. This gives a very uniform and nice look. The manual of PGF is the best I read so fare about a scripting language and real fun. In addition it explains why and how most of the publications just do it plain wrong when it comes to figures. Greetings Totti ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: OT: Search for good SMD and IC prober
Thanks to everyone for the suggestion and ideas. I really liked the idea with the #30 cable. I never used it because I thought it should be more temporary solution. However, I really got tired of the fact then whenever I move the set-up a few centimetres (this are about an inch ;) ) I hear all this clip clip clip and have to restart to rewire my debugging set-up since all the probes fall off. And using thin wire wrap cables allows me to make tiny solid connections and even keep them over days if necessary (as everyone know, sometimes a lets quickly check this lines before lunch end up with a week of debugging) without bulky clamps which for the reason of Murphy law always cover the next contact point :) Thanks again Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: OT: Search for good SMD and IC prober
Dear geda users, I know it is off topic but I guess it is somehow related to PCB and many of you face the same problem or found already a solution. I am looking for a good set of micro probes to address single pins of ICs or other SMD components on a PCB. I saw some kit which looks very promising but a bit pricey [1] however, I'm still unsure about which kind of systems exist and what might be considered as good and what is actually not worse the money. Actually, I am looking for something to contact single legs of SMD-packed ICs for debugging and testing purpose. I tried a very cheap clamps [2], however, they are not really good for my purpose and the clamps are weak and inaccurate. Most probably o.k. for the price but I am looking for something more reliable and precise. I would welcome any suggestions or ideas. Please consider that I have to order them maybe from a vendor with an international delivery service or even better a Japanese branch or reseller. Thanks Torsten [1] http://www.pomonaelectronics.com/pdf/D72902_1_19_06.pdf [2] http://jp.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProductR=0142915 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Parts Manager Working Document
Hi, Recently, I talked with some people about EDA tools and they main arguments against gEDA were: 1) no MS-windows support 2) missing components It's very nice to see that this two topics are heavily discussed here. As for the Parts Manager I read the proposal and I like to share some thoughts. First I like the idea very much to have a central unit which scopes with all kind of different inputs for gschem and pcb. I'm not sure how much a database would run against one fundamental of gEDA, which is the nice nativley use of pure text files. If there is a database, there would be a dependcy to install mysql or something similar, right ? The second thing is about the GUI. I guess it is a good idea to have one. However, please thing about that all data should be accessable from command line resp. from scripts as well. This is one of the very nice outstanding features of gEDA and it would be a pitty if I need to start a GUI to create changes to the database over and over again instead of running a 5 liner script to do that for me. Maybe there could be even some ncurse ... I think like the analogy apt-get --- aptitude --- synaptics Furthermore, as I said the main issue for people to switch from e.g. eagle to gEDA as far as I figured out is the amount of parts. I tried to explain them that gEDA strictly seperates symbols and footprints and achive a much higher flexibility with it. However, most people stick with the idea that they like to enter the exact part-name to the list and then it should be there. If there is a part manager, please think about a very very easy way to sync parts with official and unoffical public repositories. Maybe based on git or something like this. Everyone who uses gEDA might build already some exoctic footprints. There are just not published due to lack of time and resources. A simple upload wizard and a sync option would allow everyone to upload there own footprints and symbols very easily, fixing problems and bugs and finally have access to a steadily growing database. Just my two cents.. Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Change footprints on finished PCB
Hi, I just had to change some footprints for a nearly finished pcb (some parts was tricky to order from resellers in small quantities). I used gattrib which allowed me to change the footprints very easily. After running gsch2pcb, I noticed that all old footprints was removed from the pcb and I had to load the new footprints into the pcb. However, the came as a single big bloob and it took me a lot of time to rearrange them to the nearly old positions. I am just wondering whether there is a method to replace old footprints without loosing the previous position. E.g., if you change a SMD part from 0402 to 0603 it is often the case, that there is enough space on the PCB and the bigger pads only need slightly modifications of the routing. Thus, it would be nice if the footprints just get replaced but position and orientation should be kept. Thanks for helping Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Change footprints on finished PCB
Hi Gareth, Hi Stefan, thanks for pointing this out. I will try to use it next time for small changes. However, I would have to make sure that I change the schematic in addition. Furthermore, I guess a simple gsch2pcb with different footprints in pcb and geschem would overwrite the local changes in pcb, or ? This remember me that I would like ask something else. I often work in the pcb-file itself by using a text editor. As fare as I understood I can change everthing expect the refdes-names and the netlist, without breaking the relation between gschem and pcb by using gsch2pcb is that right ? Just frighten that I change something and in an weak moment a fast gschem2pcb would destroy all the work. Thanks a lot Totti ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Number of Layers
Hi Tony, check the Wiki of Geda Gentlemen - is there any forward prospect of increasing the number of working layers (I am talking metal, as opposed to solder mask, paste, silk, etc...) ? The current eight layers is great - don't get me wrong, but I am looking at some work with very dense FPGAs that would make a few more (12?) more convenient. http://www.geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:faq-pcb#is_it_true_that_pcb_is_limited_to_exactly_8_copper_layers_and_2_silkscreen_layers IIRC check Files-Preferences in pcb Greetings Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Books about PCB design
Hi all, after the request for books about analogue electronic design, I thought it might be nice to see whehter there is any book about PCB design. In particular I would be interested in the magic and voodoo parts. - pcb materials, electromechanical consideration, etc. - crosstalk, stray capacitance, track capacitance and impedance, thermal conductance, PCB power plane decoupling, power-track routing for hight speed devices, etc. - shielding, guarding, virtual grounds, isolation, etc. - mixed signal design - embedded capacitor, pcb coils, pcb antennas, etc. I know there is plenty on the net in form of PDFs. However, maybe someone knows a good book or booklet which explains all this in detail. Greetings Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: Analog books
Hi, not exact analogue design but an important aspect of todays mixed signal electronic... and maybe a little bit of insider tipp Keithley Instruments publish a booklet of how to measure very small signals (fA,pA,pV,nV) and of very low and very high resistances (uOhm, TOhm). You can not buy the booklets only send a request for a free copy. The booklets try to show how measurements can be achieve with there devices which is fair enough for a free guide. Nevertheless, they give nice general background on many kinds of error sources and tips and tricks how to avoid them. Including general design and some PCB design recommendations. The booklets are not acadaemic... just a nice overview of different techniques to tackle different problems. http://www.keithley.com/knowledgecenter Hope that helps Torsten 2009/11/24 Karl Hammar k...@aspodata.se: Can anyone recommend some good books on analog circuit design for audio, precision/low noise op.amp., emc, active filters and similar ? Regards, /Karl --- Karl Hammar Aspö Data k...@aspodata.se Lilla Aspö 148 Networks S-742 94 Östhammar +46 173 140 57 Computers Sweden +46 70 511 97 84 Consulting --- ___ 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: How to remove a element name from the silk layer
Hi, I guess the subject says it already. I have a tiny PCB-board (SMT) and some of the element names are to large. I like to remove only a few of them (the once which does not need a mark e.g. because they are unique on the board. I didn't figure out how to do this in pcb. I tried to emacs into the file and remove the name string.However, the name is also associated with the netlist. If I remove CONN1, the netlist will be broken. Further I tried a quick and dirty method by change the layer from silk to component and hide the names somewhere in the gnd-plane. But it seems there is no way to change the layer of element names Any help welcome Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: How to remove a element name from the silk layer
Woah that was by fare the fastest answer ever on a mailing list. I tried h whitch I fetched from the key-binding help... I did not work Until I notice that I have to select the footprint aka the element and not the name. Shame on me Thanks a lot Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: [PCB] Selection of objects
Reasonable ideas (I really like the first one); but you evidently forgot to attach your patches. Oh really, lets see I just need to find out about the PCB-development principles Need to get familiar with the programming language of choice Create the desired functions Patch a recent git... Debug...debug...debug...debug... Submit the patches Hmmm Sound easy right... :) Maybe I will post something... maybe... someday... Best regards Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: PCB: Can't move without silk layer switched on
Dear all, I just learn about PCB and try to move footprints in pcb and have the problem that the silk layer with the component refdes names seems to be unmovable. Since I use small SMD parts, the text (e.g. R1, C1, etc.) nearly covers completely the pads. Furthermore, I noticed that I can not move the foorprint if I deactivate the silk-layer Would be glad if someone can help me out Thanks Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: PCB: Can't move without silk layer switched on
Hi Stefan, 2009/11/18 Stefan Salewski [1]m...@ssalewski.de There is something in PCB Menu like Only Names or Lock Names. This is related to refdes text. Thanks for making things more clear... Actually, after my post I found the options you mentioned. Just was wondering about the silk layer If silk layer is deactivated you can not move the elements, this is intended. You can move only things if all of it is visible. O.k. this makes somehow sense. For questions like these google may help, when you restrict the search to this mailing list with search terms like site:[2]geda.seul.org move refdes PCB manual or geda wiki may help too. Yep, and I try heavily to use them before posting. However, the point is to find the right search phrase. move and refdes might hit but I looked for silk layer move which did not hit I guess this is always the problem with google and Co. They will be never as smart as the gEDA users in the mail list, who are able to abstract my description to the real problem as e.g., you did above. :) Thanks again Torsten References 1. mailto:m...@ssalewski.de 2. http://geda.seul.org/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Feature Request Status-Terminal instead of dialogue and info boxes
Dear Community, I just start to find out about gEDA. Maybe my request is completely stupid. Maybe it was discussed hundred times already. Maybe a newbie is not in position to request a change of a program as old as pcb ;) . I tried to parse the webpage and the mail list for infos but didn't find something related. As wrote in an earlier post, I use a tiling window manager. This concept has problems with fixed size dialogue boxes, however, I could twist and turn some knobs to get a solution for that. Nevertheless I start to explore gschem and pcb and first of all I like it a lot. Esp. the text based files are great. I can emacs into them and just use a few keyboard macros to add and delete nearly everything I like to change without having to fiddle around with GUIs. Back in pcb and gschem I noticed that very often pop-up info boxes and dialogue boxes arouse. Many of them only contain a few lines of text info. E.g., at start-up, after autorouting, after rat-net optimisation, etc. I think in that case dialouge boxes might be the wrong way to inform an professional user (I simply assume that geda-users are professional computer users). They distract a lot and might become annoying over time... E.g., move around some footprints in pcb and keep pressing O to see how the rats nets comes up. After reading the upcoming pop-up which informs X rat lines remaining are placed and press Close for the 30th time it is simply annoying. Other programs use a fixed status bar or even more mature a status terminal. This little window resist at the bottom of the main window and prints all kind of messages from gschem ore resp. pcb the user might like to read. Since it keeps a history of the messages a user can simply scroll up and down to see what happens. Normally 3-5 lines of text are enough to show an experienced user what is going on with the program. He can execute function over function ignoring the upcoming text in the terminal without getting distracted by message boxes and only if something went wrong he can check the terminal output. Furthermore, some highlighting (e.g. errors appear red) and some search facility make it easy to spot whether there is any error. This terminal could be extend for input as well, allowing easy scripting which I miss in pcb at the moment. (E.g. I like to type functions like m 12000 14000 to move the marked object to the coordinates 12000,14000). Other open source projects who utilise such a termial window use embedded python, lua or some other scripting language which gives very powerful scripting features. Furthermore, this creates a central place for all kind of messages makes it easy for a community driven project to help by state :If you are going to post about a problem, please add the terminal history to your post. I would be happy to hear what you think about such a feature. Best regards, Torsten PS. I just noticed that the pop-up window will be reused to print messages if not closed. However, I would still prefer to have it fixed integrated in the main window. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: Newbie-Problems no footprints in pcb after gsch2pcb
Hi, I tried to get into gEDA and thought I will create a little test-project. I followed the tutorial http://geda.seul.org/wiki/geda:gsch2pcb_tutorial. Since I have to use a lot of SMD-LEDs in the near future I thought I just try to create a very simple schematic on my own and try to follow the way of the tutorial. However, after I finished up the drawing in gschem, I used gsch2pcb to generate the PCB file. If I open up this file it remains empty. Starting conversion accoridng to the tutorial by: gsch2pcb 8_light_sources.rc whereas 8_light_sources.rc is my project file only contain schematic and board output name. Output of gsch2pcb is: = gsch2pcb backend configuration: Variables which may be changed in gafrc: gsch2pcb:pcb-m4-command:/usr/bin/m4 gsch2pcb:pcb-m4-dir:/usr/local/share/pcb/m4 gsch2pcb:pcb-m4-confdir:/usr/local/etc/pcb gsch2pcb:pcb-m4-path: /usr/local/share/pcb/m4 /usr/local/etc/pcb $HOME/.pcb . gsch2pcb:m4-command-line: /usr/bin/m4 -d -I/usr/local/share/pcb/m4 - I/usr/local/etc/pcb -I$HOME/.pcb -I. /usr/local/share/pcb/m4/common.m4 - 8_light_sources.pcb --- Variables which may be changed in the project file: --- gsch2pcb:use-m4:yes = Using the m4 processor for pcb footprints WARNING: V+ has no footprint attribute so won't be in the layout. -- Done processing. Work performed: 0 file elements and 8 m4 elements added to 8_light_sources.pcb. 1 components had no footprint attribute and are omitted. Next step: 1. Run pcb on your file 8_light_sources.pcb. You will find all your footprints in a bundle ready for you to place or disperse with Select - Disperse all elements in PCB. 2. From within PCB, select File - Load netlist file and select 8_light_sources.net to load the netlist. 3. From within PCB, enter :ExecuteFile(8_light_sources.cmd) to propagate the pin names of all footprints to the layout. The missing footprint is ok for now. I did not assign one to a component to see what happens. The PCB-file is also written and peeping inside I saw many stuff which seems like it should be o.k. ;) Starting PCB by pcb 8_light_sources.pcb Opens up PCB and direclty fires up library selection dialog. However, I just find a plain empty sheet. No footprints. I use the PCB version 20091103 and gEDA just compiled from git. Would be nice if someone is able to help me out Thanks Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: gEDA, awesome wm and dual monitor
Hi all, I recently start up trying to use gEDA and Friends. As window-manager I use awesome (http://awesome.naquadah.org/) which as far as I can see share many ideas with the gEDA project in terms of GUI usage. Thus, I wondering whether there are more awesome users here. Awesome is a tiling minimalistic window manager without window boarders, maximising window size for applications. Naturally, floating fixed size dialog boxes are poison for this principle since they might create a lot of funny annoying things in a tiling maximising window manager. Awesome tries to figure out how to deal with it and use a special floating mode if it notice about a dialog box. I noticed that gschem and pcb open up a dialog box at start which are not recognised by awesome as floating boxes and wonder if there is any way to either suppress this or to fix the size within awesome. I can look throw awesome page and wiki to find a solution for this but thought maybe someone here have a nice working config already. Furthermore, I use a dual monitor set-up (something maybe not as unlikely for EDA systems). However, for some reasons, the dialog boxes e.g. for the library selection window always open up at the wrong display. I know this strange behaviour from other programs as well. On the awesome mail list people refer to the fact the programs themselves mess around with the window settings. I guess, if this is true it might be interesting for some of the devs to check at which point gschem and pcb might conflict with the window managers since this might create all kind of problems not only in awesome but also for other window managers. Greetings Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: powermeter results!
Also if a bit OT DJ Delorie wrote: No surprise, computers and related electronics accounted for a third of my electric bill. I'm working on that, but that's the cost of doing business. Are the always on computers close together? As they deserve it, you could replace ordinary computers with ones that run on a DC bus, allowing them to be fanless mostly, and make/buy an efficient power supply for the DC bus voltage. Then you could integrate the DC bus power supply into your HVAC control system so it exchanges heat with outside or ground temp in summer and adds to building heat in winter. Another point to save, if your computers are running 24/7 and mainly provide server functions and you are not frighten to run Linux, which I guess is the case for a gEDA reader, a) just buy a bigger machine and use virtualisation technologies like XEN, Virtualbox, VMWare, etc. b) get some of this little ARM based boards or Atom based boards to replace your hungry desktop processors by something more greeny (e.g. check for the beagle board on the web which consumes only 1.5 W). This yet tiny but powerful systems can normally serve well all home and small office network and multimedia stuff and requires less power in full operation mode then many desktop computers in suspend mode. c) Computers which does not need to run 24/7 but always on because of the discomfort to shut them down and power them up will benefit greatly from wake- on-lan and wake-up-timers (mostly found in bios settings). Greetings Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: powermeter results!
and you are not frighten to run Linux, Heh. No, I'm not :-) That's nice to hear :) a) just buy a bigger machine and use virtualisation technologies like XEN, Virtualbox, VMWare, etc. For security reasons, I'd rather not combine my public-facing server with my internal file server. For performance reasons, the chess server has its own fast dual-cpu box. Actually unlike you are a paranoid security geek, mature solutions like XEN do not differ from what is used at prof. domain and root server providers. Unlikely that someone is able to hack through your xen-webserver to access your xen-fileserver. I have WOL configured for my work machine, but the other 24/7 machines really need to be on 24/7. Depending on the task you might like to play around with sending hdds to suspend and other power management stuff... I applied once some of the stuff known for laptops to one of my home servers and it save a bit power. Going crazy you can replace the often R/W-access folders of your system with mount point to a RAM-disk and save even more power... however with tricks like that you might risk data loose. Greetings, Totti ___ 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: powermeter results!
d) Replace an obsolete server with a cast-off-for-mechanical-reasons laptop. I'm thinking of cracked cases or screens. You get quiet, low power, small footprint, and a built-in UPS. And its price ranges from small (*cough* ebay *cough*) to free. (You're welcome, Steve) I did this a few times. It could work out nice. However, defect laptops with low or nearly no value are already somehow old. Even if performance is not the primary target, that would include that the hardware is already somehow exhaust and at the end of lifetime. Personally, I noticed that this is more true for laptops then for desktop PCs. I assume the constant heat conditions inside a laptop are going to kill it over time and the fan system is not designed for 24/7 operations. I think if you like to operate an older laptop 24/7 you have to improve cooling. I used two cracked laptops as a low budget server and both died rather fast. As for the UPS, the Li-Ion batteries died first ;), they are not considered for long shelf live. That's the reason you still find NiCd or lead acid batteries in UPS systems. That means not it isn't a good idea to use a laptop, it could be a nice cheap all-in-one-solution, just some precaution have to be taken into advance... 1. don't take models (often no-name brands) which are known to become very hot... 2. improve cooling somehow (e.g. remove all unneeded stuff and remove the internal keyboard, add a low rotating big fan (low noise) to it... Greetings Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gEDA and pcb status and minigration from Eagle
I don't want to clutter the list with invidual Thank you answers. Thus this post is a big thanks for all the answers and the really nice unbiased explanations. The amount of answers, the friendly writing style and the compentency makes me sure the gEDA community is nice and active. I played around with gschem and pcb yesterday and so fare I have to say: GREAT It is exactly what I was looking for. Something which let me have control of whats going on. If there is somewhere a user counter then user_counter =+ 1 ;) Thanks again. Torsten P.S. One question remain: Why I didn't switch some years ago already ?! I guess it was the somehow alienating GUIs which keep me away. However, this seems to be better no on both sides. I lost interest in fancy GUIs and gschem and PCB makes some effort to create a little bit more beauty GUIs. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gEDA and pcb status and minigration from Eagle
the blogosphere and Internet is rather quite about this packages. Is the blogospere more chatty on kicad? Hmm... difficulte question. I was looking for some Tutorials and some blog posts where people write about there expierence with gschem and pcb. Maybe one point is the name of pcb it is similar like LaTeX... google it and you will be overhelmed with wrong results. As for kicad I did not look in detail but it seems to be more on discussion along hobbists then gschem and pcb. I guess do to its out-of-the-box nature Best regards, Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gEDA and pcb status and minigration from Eagle
If you're new to gEDA, make sure you have at least the 1.6.0 version. Anything older is just so much uglier. 1.6.0 is actually the latest release - there are one or two bug fixes (one notable) in git HEAD if you wanted to build from source Thanks for pointing this out. Actually I tried to build from git but received an error messages Making all in scheme make[3]: Entering directory `/home/torsten/gaf/gnetlist/scheme' sed \ -e 's;@m4@;/usr/bin/m4;g' \ -e 's;@pcbm4dir@;/opt/gEDA/share/pcb/m4;g' \ -e 's;@pcbconfdir@;/opt/gEDA/etc/pcb;g' \ ./gnet-gsch2pcb.scm.in gnet-gsch2pcb.scm if test . != ; then \ echo copying scheme files ; \ cp -f ./*.scm ; \ else \ echo source directory = build directory ; \ fi copying scheme files cp: target `./gnet-vipec.scm' is not a directory make[3]: *** [all-local] Error 1 make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/torsten/gaf/gnetlist/scheme' Thus, I switched back to the tar-ball. Would be nice to know how to fix it since I like to track project progresses with git Thanks Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
gEDA-user: gEDA and pcb status and minigration from Eagle
Dear gEDA community, this is my first mail to the list, thus do not flame me if I ask silly questions. For the last days I was looking for a open source program for PCB design. I came across KiCad and the gEDA package not mentioned some of the smaller proggis around the web. Here and there I played around with both already, but never make some serious work. Back at my windows OS times I teached myself Eagle and whenever I had to do some real work, I switched to the free eagle version for Linux. Nevertheless, over the last months I changed my work habits from a MS windows like style with fancy pretty 3d windows (e.g., KDE) to a minimalistic design and the command-line (e.g., awesome wm). Thus, I killed more and more proprietary programs and replaced bloated GUI-programs by KISS(keep it simple stupid)-versions. Now, it is time to look again into EDA. Initially, I believe that according to my work habits, gEDA and pcb might be more suitable to me then KiCad. However, I can not see the ongoing usage and development of this projects in the near future. I saw actual releases for both packages but do not know whether there is really an active development in progress. Package management systems of different distributions ship rather old versions and the blogosphere and Internet is rather quite about this packages. Furthermore, can I do all the stuff I was used to do in eagle with gEDA and pcb ? Are there any shortcuts or limitations ? How mature and stable are the suite yet ? Can it be really considered for serious work ? As for me I have no problem to get my hand dirty and crawl around in config- files and text-files. I even will love to see that maybe one or another task can be done by simply writing some text-files in emacs (or vi to avoid a war). For Eagle, I liked the little command line at the bottom of the window, which allowed me to type in comments rather then clicking and searching around in GUI-settings. If there is something like this in gschem or pcb I would be happy to use it. I know to ask all this questions here is a bit silly, since you all are somehow biased (otherwise you would not read this list ;) ). So, please try to give me a very objective idea about the status of the project. :) Just don't want to ride a dead horse and notice later that the projects freeze and I spend all the fun to learn it without further be able to use it. I highly appreciate any comments and suggestions. Thanks, Torsten ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
