OBEX Hardware category
System
Posts: 43
This discussion was created from comments split from: New HW project - P2 Bull Ant.
System
Posts: 43
Comments
Nice, they look really professional. Are they only for internal use or would you mind sharing them? I wonder if it was possible to make some sort of "open hardware pool" for accessory boards. I've also made an Ethernet accessory board. Unfortunatelly, hardware is not as easy to copy as software.
Thank you. They're very simple, and I tried to match the form of other P2 accessories as closely as I could.
Most are very generic designs, so I could share them -- I just need to take the company logo off the bottom layer.
My Ethernet accessory is the expensive route using the XPort. I also have a board that @ke4pjw very kindly sent to me. All of my "networking" projects have involved RS-485 or XBee. I stated earlier, it's time for me to learn how to use WiFi and Ethernet.
Maybe @"Ken Gracey" or @VonSzarvas can make a forum for sharing hardware designs so that we don't end up with Gerbers and other design files all over the forum.
When it comes to hardware design: Long ago, I used TANGO for PCB and Schematics, then TANGO was improved and became uncomfortable, then it was acquired and became expensive too. So I was pressed to switch to EAGLE, what definitely was a backslash, but even EAGLE was acquired... same story. Being in need to again look into a design, I downloaded KiCAD, what I have seen as some toy until then, and: surprise! The design was completely moved to a KICAD project without any help needed and NO, it is no toy at all! It looks like it is all you need.
So it we share hardware designs and you are tired, changing your toolbox, this could be an investment worth the effort!
Perhaps the method of sharing from a common point exists already. Add a hardware section to the OBEX. And consider adding an entry for version information of the things used so it doesn't fail out of the box because an older version of X,Y, or Z was used when the object/hardware was uploaded.
@JonnyMac @"frank freedman"
"Hardware" option added to the category list.
For language, if nothing appropriate it could be left unticked AFAIK, or choose "Generic" ?
This was the quickest thing I could adjust without permission.
Arguably might be nicer to have a new tick-box category under the uC choice, for Code / Hardware / Tips , etc... to encourage more content to be shared and stored together on OBEX.
If that ever happens, we can always re-index things ticked with a hardware category.
Please let me know if you find any gremlins after the change, or if you'd prefer some other solution, etc..!
KiCAD was once a toy, but it's incredible what ten years of funding by CERN will do to a project...
@VonSzarvas,
I would want P1, P2, or blank for generic. Hardware seems pretty much code independent. Language would only be relvant to any demo code uploaded with it. My mention for source info would be to allow reliable use of any demo code uploaded with it. As to the actual submission, it would be hopefully be a zip/rar/tar/gzip of any files that may be needed to recreate the harware and contain version info for any particular tools, Eagle, KiCad, in case of any compatibility problems.
Thank you for the addition to the obex.