blog

A Fast Week

Man, this week has been crazy on a million levels — I can't believe it's already Thursday. I haven't even had a chance to finish going through our vacation pics yet, which stinks. I have, however, been hard at work finalizing my effect pedal circuit boards for mass production, and really nailing-down getting all the necessary files generated properly (see previous post). After a few initial kinks, I have it all figured out — which means I can get back to designing circuits. That said, I thought I'd post pics of 3 of my effects as they appear in Eagle. From top to bottom, you see the "io" super-distortion, the "PURE" clean boost, and "The Peach" custom fuzz:

I also finished clear coating the Tap tap-tempo switch, but I haven't had a chance to take a picture of it yet. Man, so much to do...so little time...

Posted at 12:35pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

Generate Gerber 274x Files From Eagle CAD

First off, this tutorial assumes you already have the ability to input schematics and build boards with Eagle CAD. If you don't know your way around Eagle, check out Paul's write-up at GaussMarkov.

Let me interject a few general Eagle tips of my own before we get started. First off, I would highly recommend you download and install Paul's component libraries. These libraries are organized with effect builders in mind, and their sizes and specifications work with pretty much every boardhouse you'll ever use.

Second, I would recommend using a 50mil grid in Eagle. This allows you to have plenty of room around your pads and vias for solder mask, etc., while providing enough room for 15mil traces using a 25mil routing grid. The boardhouse you choose will have their minimum technology specifications, so your final sizes can easily be smaller and tighter than my recommendations — but mine are a good start.

Third, I like to set my trace widths to 15mil as the default. Do this by opening Eagle and selecting "Net classes..." from the "Edit" menu. In the first field, set the Default to 15mils like you see here:

Fourth, it's good practice to make sure your silkscreen and component outlines DO NOT intersect with pads, vias, or solder mask areas. This means you may need to modify the component's library file artwork (that's for another tutorial). Not all boardhouses worry about this, and some will fix it or you — but charge you a premium for the work. I prefer to be proactive and save money.

Fifth, if you're wanting to have your component names as part of your silkscreen layer (layer tPlace), make sure you smash the component and move the names to the tPlace layer. Component names are often on the Document layer, and some boardhouses do not merge this layer with the silkscreen. In my library files, I have gone through and made this change from within the component's file so that I don't have to do this later.

With that out of the way, let's get to generating Gerber files...

1. The first thing I'd recommend you do, is download my custom gerb274x CAM file. Drop this into your Eagle's cam folder, and you're good to go. My CAM file streamlines the generation of the necessary Gerber and Drill files in one step, passes on the mirroring (so it's easier to inspect the files later), and sets the drill file precision to 2.4.

2. Create the schematic and board file for your circuit if you haven't already. In this tutorial, I just have a dummy circuit for appearance's sake. Again, I'm writing this with the assumption you already know how to create boards with Eagle, so your circuit should fully pass all ERC and DRC tests with no errors whatsoever. Below are the schematic and finished board (with a massive ground plane) I used for this tutorial:

3. With your board loaded, open Eagle's CAM Processor (File > CAM Processor), then choose File > Open > Job...

In the dialog that appears, select the "RHFX-gerb274x.cam" file (it should be located in the Eagle application folder's "cam" folder).

Once the CAM file is loaded, simply click the "Process Job" button and let Eagle generate the files for you.

Inside the folder containing your schematic and board file, you will now see 10 new files, highlighted below (obviously, your names will be different — but the extensions will not).

We're only interested in 7 of those 10 files: the the TXT, GBL, GBO, GBS, GTL, GTO, and GTS files. Those files represent the following:

• TXT: the drill file
• GBL: the bottom copper layer
• GBO: the bottom silkscreen layer
• GBS: the bottom solder mask layer
• GTL: the top copper layer
• GTO: the top silkscreen layer
• GTS: the top solder mask layer

4. We now need to test our files to make sure they look how we expect them to, and to do this, we need to use a "Gerber view" program. I like to use the free programs ViewPlot, or Pentalogix's ViewMate. The latter requires an email registration, just so you know.

In this tutorial, I'll be using ViewPlot, so let's fire it up. After it's open, we need to import our generated files, so select File > Load Files..., and in the dialog box that opens, navigate to the 10 files we created in Step 3. All you need to select are the TXT, GBL, GBO, GBS, GTL, GTO, and GTS files, like so:

The "Read FIles" dialog box will open, listing the files you selected and assigning them to different layers in the ViewPlot window. The defaults are fine, so click the "OK" button at the bottom:

The "Load Drill File" window will appear next, and here you need to make sure the Number Format is 2.4, like you see here (change your selection if necessary, then click the "OK" button"):

If everything went as planned, you should see your board file loaded into the ViewPlot window — and it should pretty much look exactly like your board does in Eagle, like so:

You can use the layer highlight popup menu at the bottom left to bring the different layers to the top for viewing.

5. If something doesn't look right — like the drill holes not lining-up with the pads or vias — you'll need to check your board file's settings.

If everything looks as it should, then you're ready to submit your files to your boardhouse of choice — and those files are the 7 mentioned above: the TXT, GBL, GBO, GBS, GTL, GTO, and GTS files. On rare occasions, a boardhouse will ask for different files, but the above are the standard Gerber274x and NC files used by the vast majority of companies.

And that, my friends, is how to export your Eagle data in Gerber format for PC board fabrication.

Posted at 2:36pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Song

Sometimes you hear a song that just really hits home in relation to what's going on around you, and this one was mine for today. I've always loved this song, but today it meant more than ever. I'm hoping to do this when I lead worship in a few weeks, too. Anyway, it's "Rise Up" by Third Day, and here are the words:

Posted at 12:11pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

San Francisco Vacation Part 1

Now that we're back home and getting back into our routine again, I thought I'd post a bit about our trip to San Francisco. For starters, it was probably one of the best trips we've been on. By and large, the weather was perfect — a bit chilly at first, but it warmed-up enough to be comfortable all day. We didn't have a packed schedule, so we were able to enjoy a slow and relaxing pace. We typically had one or two things on our agenda, as well as a restaurant or two, per day — and all day to get those things done. Nice. The hotel was perfect, too, verging on immaculate — and there's a decent chance we may make that hotel chain our temporary home of choice on our future vacations.

Day one was pretty simple since that's the day we arrived. We mainly wandered around the hotel blocks, checking out nearby Chinatown — which was fantastic. The whole area was literally like you were in China. The decorations, buildings, writing (and menu photos) were really cool to look at. We had also heard good things about a burger joint called Taylor's Automatic Refresher (from friends, family, and Food TV), so we jumped on the California line trolly and headed to the Ferry Building to eat. Taylor's did not disappoint — great burgers.

The next day we headed to the Conservatory of Flowers, which was really cool. Unfortunately for us, though, the annual Bay to Breakers Race was going right through the park, so it was basically a huge frat party/Lollapalooza/wierdfest out there. So, we didn't get to do everything we wanted (visiting the other gardens in the area) because I didn't feel like dealing with some drunk messing with us or something. We eventually got a bus and headed back to the hotel to relax before heading to Uncle Vito's Pizzeria for dinner. And let me say, if you ever go to San Francisco, go to Uncle Vito's! Here are a couple of pics from the Conservatory:

Monday, we rented a vehicle and headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium — a place we've both wanted to visit for years. Even though it was full of screaming and running kids, it was a great experience. The kelp forest was beautiful, and the huge jellyfish section was mesmerizing. I was afraid it would be like any other big city aquarium, but it was really one of those spots that would be worth the trip to see. Here are a couple of jellyfish pics:

From here, we breezed through the 17-Mile drive along the coast, and had dinner at a restaurant called Little Napoli in Carmel. I had the Isola d’Elba (vegetable arborio Risotto with sautéed sea scallops and Mexican white prawns), and it was, to be honest, one of the best meals I've ever eaten in my life. I'd pay the airfare just to go eat there again — seriously. After driving back to San Francisco, we hit Taylor's again for ice cream. Oh, and while we were stopped along the 17-Mile drive, this little ground squirrel kept following me around:

The next day was the big hot air balloon ride over Napa Valley, but to make a long story short, it got scrubbed. It was too foggy in the valley for safe flight, and as we were loading up to go to the alternate site, the pilots were informed it was too windy. Ugh. This was one of the things we were most looking forward to, so it stunk that it was cancelled. So we goofed aorund Napa for a couple of hours, visiting some wineries and stuff, then ate at Michael Chiarello's Pizzeria Tra Vigne. From here we went to Muir Woods, which was breathtaking. You can't fully grasp how big these trees are until you're standing under them, and it was a majestic testament to God's creation. Here are a couple of pics:

Alcatraz was next, but I'll save that for another post (once I get those pictures processed)...

Posted at 4:38pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (3)

Back Home

We're back home after our 5 (6?) day trip to San Francisco, and we're dadgum TIRED. Stay tuned for some wicked pics from Monterey Bay Aquarium, as well as general SF pics!

Posted at 9:30pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

China Town, Again

Here's another shot from China Town on Sunday. This man was heading our direction as we walked along the street, and I just couldn't resist the urge to take his picture — even though I could tell he was avoiding being in the camera's range.

So, when the crosswalk light turned green, I let him step ahead — and I snapped this shot (which is why I had to settle for the truck in the background).

I feel kind of bad for taking his picture since I know he didn't want me to, so send him good vibes.

Posted at 10:06pm CDT | Permalink | Comments (0)

China Town

We're still here in San Francisco, but I'm finding time to get online in the evenings, so I thought I'd try and upload some pics here and there. I have some wicked-cool shots from the Monterey Bay Aquarium — but I'm going to wait until we get back to really go through my pics.

Anyway, here's a shot of China Town on a Sunday morning. It's been years since I was in San Francisco, and we never visit China Town while in New York — so this area of SF was especially interesting to me.

Posted at 5:29am CDT | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dropbox: Whither Remote Storage?

Rarely do I get excited about software any longer, but I was introduced to an awesome new service a while back, and I'm loving it: Dropbox. Here's a really simplified explanation of what Drobox can do...

Basically, you install Dropbox on your system and it creates a "Dropbox" folder on your local Mac, inside your Home folder. The Dropbox folder is just like any other folder on your system, so dragging a file into it moves the file there — it doesn't copy the file like a remote or external disk would. Again, the Dropbox folder is a local folder, not external or remote storage media.

What happens then, is the contents of your Dropbox folder get copied to the Dropbox server. You can then go to another system (Mac or Windows), install Dropbox, sync it to your Dropbox account, and you almost instantly have access to those same files on this second system. In the shot below, you can see by the icon badge that my "Worship Music" folder is still syncing, and the others are already done.

Just to tout the beauty of our remote wireless world, here's what I did to get some of the folders in the above screenshot into my Dropbox folder. Using Mac OS X 10.5's screen sharing capability, I logged into my home system from my MacBook Air while I'm out of town. Since I have my USB drive inserted in my home system, I was able to copy data off the USB drive and into the Dropbox folder on my home system (again, thanks to Remote Screen Sharing). Seconds later, my MacBook Air synced its local Dropbox folder, and my website and song chart folders became available for use — thousands of miles away. How cool is that?

Anyway, you can use Dropbox on as many systems as you want, and store up to 2GBs of data for free. What's cool, too, is that if Dropbox (as a service) goes belly-up, you haven't lost anything because all the files are stored on your local system. Remember: Dropbox just syncs all the changes you make, so you really aren't using "remote storage" in the traditional sense.

After a week of use, Dropbox is slowly but surely replacing my USB flash drive. I find myself no longer needing to tote my flash drive around, or work on files only have to recopy them somewhere else. And, unlike .Mac or other remote storage, I don't have to have internet access to use my files. I could be tweaking my stuff offline, then the next time I get on the internet, my changes will be sent to the Dropbox server, and all my systems will sync-up.

The Dropbox team is hard at it, making updates and adding features, as they prep for public release — so be sure to read through their forums for all kinds of insight and detail.

This is technology that will totally change how we handle remote storage and file syncing, and even at this early stage, Dropbox is amazing.

Posted at 8:28am CDT | Permalink | Comments (5)