I agree. Ryan and I are trying to keep the work as simple and useful as possible. The goal is to have a mass-produced part, and use production processes (stenciled solder paste, production process, etc). The Feather M4 is a really useful tool in its own right. That said, I can see using the PPH space that Adafruit has provided and using it to add sensors, or at least lands for sensors of some type.
Yes. I was in an impossible situation having to produce a working system for the BioHacking Village, and the OpenDrop was immediately available. As it was, I only had time and resources to chase down all the EOL and out of stock listings on the BOM.
Totally agree with this. The goal is not to make an original board for this workshop, but I do think it is useful to convert this reference design to KiCad and write up documentation re: flashing the MCU bootloader, etc. This should make it easier for other people to design new OScH projects around this awesome chipset (and using the Feather ecosystem in general).
I think it’s a great idea to add something in the proto area to customize it further. Maybe some Grove or Qwiic ports for protoyping with other sensors/actuators? Any other ideas?
Yup, the invitation to MakerBay is really for the people who land in HK, so on your way in to GOSH, or on your way out, back home. For electronics and hardware, there is definitely a lot more to see, do, shop in Shenzhen, but i think you guys will still appreciate to have a friendly place in Hong Kong To save you time looking for our address when you land: https://www.makerbay.org/pages/contact-1
Oh, we have a reflow oven and a good collection of components.
There was a lot of interest last year in doing a surface mount soldering workshop (@kaspar@gbathree@biomurph@kina.smith@dusjagr). Anyone else interested in helping to organize something like this and/or have any good ideas for a simple/cheap board to make (e.g., GOSH2018 badge?).
The Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 is a pretty cool little SAMD51 dev board (the SAMD51 is the successor to the popular SAMD21) that can be made for ~$5. It’s plenty fast and has lots of flash/ram for running CircuitPython, which could facilitate a nice follow-on activity/workshop.
I would be down to help make this happen.
I have a J-Link programmer (assuming that’s what we need to bootload the SAMD51)
I can bring soldering tools… how do you propose to mount the QFN?
When I do these kinds of prototype builds, I go through PCB Pool. They provide a free stencil…
We would need a reflow heat gun… I bet Shenzhen has a pile of them somewhere…
Re-Routing the Feather M4 so that it will accept Grove connectors. I went with I2C and Analog, figuring that they are the most used circuits in the Grove environment. Here’s a link to the work that I did based on @ryanfobel work. https://github.com/biomurph/Feather-M4-Express-clone.kicad
The board layout is the one with GOSH in the title. I could not get KiCAD to produce a usable .net file, because the one from my fork is ‘legacy’. After fighting it for a few hours to get the GND connections to be happy, I think I just need to widen the board a bit to make the analog connections…
Anyhoo, just posting progress. If anybody has feedback on the re-design, please post here or on the issues tab of my github.
I can help and am arriving on the 3rd. I put my name down on the spreadsheet.
EDIT: I have been thinking: maybe we could try and let people pick an existing open source hardware project that they want and help them order and assemble it. If we can turn PCBs in 24 hours and get components from HQB, seems like a great opportunity. What do you think @ryanfobel@biomurph@dusjagr@gbathree ?
That would be fun and really helpful for someone in the right place in the process…
I have a project that I’d like to bring (don’t want to take resources from others, but if we’re looking for fun stuff I’m happy to bring it)! It’s something we’ve been thinking about working on that feels kind of like a no brainer, soil related. Making a soil penetrometer that was also a soil moisture sensor. There are applications in ag and arboriculture, and it’s honestly very doable in a hackathon one day kind of setup. We’d need just basic stuff (resistors, wires, soldering, maybe a few minor parts), though it’d be nice to have access to a machine shop (nothing complicated, but we’d probably want to machine the stainless rod and possibly tip)… Maybe could even do it at X Factory when we visit.
I got 6 of the Feather M4 clones that have two Grove connectors added to them (I2C and Analog).
I also have a stencil and extra parts from this project that I did for OSHWA Summit schwag last week
Might be a fun thing to add to the pile of quick turn projects. I’ll bring the parts.
We landed in Shenzhen and set-up base in SteamheadSZ, a Steam education makerspace in Shekou, and full on started designing PCBs, sharing skills for svg2Shenzhen, KiCAD and other methods of collaborative PCB design & production.
I see there is a lot of activity on other related activities to the Collaborative Fabrication Gatherings! That’s good!
I am sorry for the long time without updates. I spent the last days traveling with few quick connections. Also there was a misunderstanding about the conditions to run the activity, and I was trying to find a place suitable for our activity.
Fortunately, SZOIL is suitable for our activity. So let’s go there. We will have two gatherings: October 7th and 8th. I suggest we meet at 10:00 am and stay until 6:00 pm The address is: 531，B4,Sino-Finnish Design Park,Funian Square,Shihua Road,Futian Bonded Area,Shenzhen.
Please confirm here as a reply. If we have two confirmations until 09:00 am of tommorow we are good to go and the activity is confirmed.
Bring your laptop for the activity of tommorow.
Please also tell if it would be possible for you to join only during the October 8th. If it is better for the majority of the group we can concentrate activities in one day and do less steps.
in fact… meanwhile…
i have secured another space for tomorrow, 7th october, to meet and discuss PCB fabrication. SteamheadSZ has offered us to use their makerspace in Shekou.
we are already starting tonite, sharing some creative PCB design skills and having drinks and then full on tomorrow.
Here is the adress in english:
Room 205, 2nd Floor, Building A, Hua Guo Shan Community, Gong Ye 7 Road at Gong Yuan Road, Shekou, Nanshan, Shenzhen
and in chinese (taxi drivers prefer this):
中国广东省深圳市南山区蛇口花果山大厦A座205号
See description of how to get here
for Monday 8th, i suggest to meet at SZOIL to see that space also, and/or for the Soil Activities to use openFIESTA.
To save you time looking for our address when you land:
