Some low cost RISCV ICs 😋

These are CH32V003's that I bought from the WCH aliexpress store. @Patrick_RISCV tweets a lot about their RISCV offerings.

Crazy that you can get 32Bit, 48MHz with 16KB FLASH for <$0.50 in low qty. I have the perfect project in mind for these.
I stumbled across this flipdot project pierremuth.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/fli… from @PierreMuth

I just happen to have a box of the flipdot modules.
The CH32V003 can replace the PIC used in the original design and acts like an auto latching 595.

Weird phenomenon, during reflow some green LED power indicators are emitting slightly.

Seems like maybe during reflowing solid polymer caps there is an effect of creating a small electrical current?

Does anyone know what this effect is called? Maybe some further reading? I wouldn't expect a particularly good electrical connection between the LEDs and the PCB before the paste has reflowed...

An alternative explanation is they're glowing from the high amount of IR present in the oven from the heating elements. Will test next time I reflow.

When working with inside corners for PCB cutouts, keep in mind the milling bit cutting your board edge has a radius (...Unless you're doing laser cut FPC)

If you design in ears like this, your part can fit snug upto that PCB edge. To avoid high contact areas with the cutter you generally want this feature to be larger than the diameter of the cutter routing the PCB.

Here the diameter of the feature is 3mm.

So I've broken down my old "hobby PnP", and throught I'd take a look inside these Clearpath servo motors.

They're 75V AC drive servos, but contain all the control electronics and encoder internally, they're marketed as drop in "stepper killers".

(the front fell off? 😅)

🧵 The back also comes off to reveal a board stack, there is a complete rubber seal around this entire assembly, which holds in on very tightly around the Molex mini-fit connectors.

This seal is essential to keep dust off the exposed optical encoder disk.

Lets allocate some time into routing this. Only 722 un-routed nets to connect. 😳😨 I haven't reduced my un-routed, but making a start.

Still learning as I go. But it's looking reasonably neat! :)

Practising my bodge skills

This is a QFN where the footprint on the PCB was incorrect.

Just a couple more bodge wires to add. Halfway done

Got my Elgato CameraLink 4K today. In an effort to assist others wanting to do fun stuff with the hardware, I wonder if I should pull some chips off and start tracing out PCB connections... 🤔

These PCBs turned out great! There is something magical about Matte Black/ENIG. 😍

This is my first time doing silkscreen art like this. After routing I exported my board layers into inkscape, did the artwork then imported back into kicad.

This is either a great idea, or a terrible idea.

I'm still not sure which... *Easy* mode won't work. This chip doesn't have enough I/O for the matrix.

I need 27 IO pins. :/

Checking my mail, and look whats arrived! Stencils for the next prototype batch of EX boards from @OSHStencils!

Thanks @TinyFPGA!

All the pieces are all here. so I'll whip these up soon. I think this paste application will be acceptable. 🧙‍♂️

Time to cast some polyurethane resin parts! (Thread)

These could probably be made with a 3d printer.. but that's a lazy way. 😅 The blue silicone molds were created ages ago from these ren-shape masters

Renshape is free machining plastic (maybe polyurethane?). Easy to machine, and captures alot of detail. I carved these out on my cheap desktop milling machine.

Unfortunately I broke these during release.

Time to take a look at the enclosures for this logger. This is what I'm planning right now. A few cutouts on the top half.