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Fixed Point Python Libraries
Thursday, February 02, 2023 in Blog
8 minute read
Introduction I’ve been interested in simulating fixed point algorithms in python. Since there are several libraries, all a bit different I test out as many as I could find. The test is: For each library show simple and compound calculations in …
Reusing PCB Design Elements
Tuesday, December 13, 2022 in Blog
6 minute read
Board template layout Here’s the scenario: you’ve come up with a great product design, designed the electronics, written the software, set up testing, designed an enclosure, set up manufacturing, and are shipping products. Version 0.1.0 …
Building an Automated Test Jig: Hardware
Sunday, November 27, 2022 in Blog
4 minute read
Merifix MF300 Fixture Part 2. of figuring out how to build a series of automated testing jigs for Hobbs ElectroOptics and ElectroOptical Innovations. The first part “Requirements and Resources” is available here. Like the first part this …
Building an Automated Test Jig: Requirements & References
Thursday, November 24, 2022 in Blog
6 minute read
Blue Clover Tester Chassis As the number of projects We’re supporting increases the growing support requirements are growing out of control.There is a dire need of a standardized approach to test the electronics. Currently at Hobbs …
kicad-parts-placer
Saturday, November 19, 2022 in Blog
3 minute read
New Tool! KiCAD tool that can be used to exactly place pogo pins according to the centroid file of the design under test. The tool is simple, using several features already available for the process. It removes an error prone and time consuming task …
Timing Diagrams
Wednesday, November 09, 2022 in Blog
7 minute read
ADC Timing I have recently been working as part of a team generating some custom silicon for a high speed time of flight LIDAR. The digital logic is very simple but its important to get this correct. The team has several different groups all working …
Tool: object-symbols-parser
Wednesday, October 26, 2022 in Blog
2 minute read
Intro Link: https://github.com/snhobbs/object_symbols_parser When the linker can’t complete as the image size is overrunning the section sizes defined in your linker script, it can be a pain to get the symbol table to find out what is causing …
Sigrok + $10 Logic Analyzer
Thursday, October 13, 2022 in Blog
3 minute read
Logic analyzer opened up Hardware I recently tried out one of the cheap fx2 logic analyzers to debug an I2C and an SPI issue that I was struggling with. Normally an oscilloscope and a bit of thought is enough to solve these but my reliable code …
KiCAD PCBNew Scripting: Basic scripting beyond the built in terminal
Monday, June 13, 2022 in Blog
2 minute read
The internal WX based scripting terminal in KiCAD’s PCBNew is as bare bones as it gets. You can use a normal interface with the LoadBoard function in the pcbnew scripting interface. There isn’t any documentation to speak of for the API …
KiCAD PCBNew Scripting: Removing Ref Des From Silk Screen
Saturday, June 11, 2022 in Blog
3 minute read
Purpose Most boards I make have the reference designators on the silkscreen, that way when doing board bring-up I only need the schematic, BOM, and board. When doing a tight design it may not be possible to fit the labels anywhere that might …