Oshpark Projects

Helios’ new 4 x AA boards now in op. How about a 2s2p version?

Will OSH cut those boards in square or round shape?

Ok, I’ll send him a pm to see if he can list it on Oshpark.

EDIT I pm’d him and he is still selling them so for the time being he is the place to get those triple carriers. The idea of this thread is to collect and index open sourced DIY projects that are listed on Oshpark not to pirate anyone else’s work and post it here. It’s bad karma.

I went ahead and listed Scaru’s board. I hope he doesn’t mind since it’s already shared.

Hikelite still has these boards for sale. I did enquire not long ago but I really want 4 x battery carriers.

4 x carriers are listed in the op.

Thanks, Warhawk and Dave_. Diptrace is nice I’ve been watching tutorials of both and I agree (Bare in mind that know 4/5ths of nothing) that the Diptrace is more user friendly. I like the proof reading function that checks for errors and un-connected leads and highlights them. I think I will experiment with Diptrace and see what I can learn. It looks like if you know what sensors, chips, resistors etc. as well as what pins you want to connect it will do the rest all you have to do is specify what size of copper poor and via’s you want it to use and then let it run. (Take that last statement with a very large grain of salt as I have less than 1 hour of experience and a lifetime of enthusiasm)

Eagle can do auto routing as well however from experience I can guarantee that you will want to manually trace the routs yourself. On boards such as LED drivers they don't get mind bogglingly complex so manual routing is easy to do. It also depends on how 'beautiful' you want your board to look. I can say this - automated routing will very rarely give you the best solution. You can also run design rule and routing checks in Eagle, do automated pours etc. I tried doing all that stuff at the start but the more I used Eagle the more I preferred the manual methods because of the control it gives you. It's almost as if I 'paint' the boards I make now. I do basic layout and routing and then 'free trace' every bit of copper. It's easier than it sounds.

Yeah, setting up the autorouter for the different trace sizes needed for power and signal traces etc. will take more time than routing such small projects by hand and will look way worse. :wink:
I find little use for them at all as you can only trust them with really unimportant stuff.

A plus factor for Eagle is the number of tutorials and videos out there.
Some claim the big part libraries are a plus, but they contain so many errors that one has to check pinouts and footprints anyway. To frustrating for my taste, I rather take the few minutes to make them myself then . . .
I think that for someone who hasn’t had any contact with any cad tools, eagle will be way more difficult to get used to than diptrace or other tools.
A new user should not need to battle an unintuitive user interface, the lerning curve is already steep enough. :wink:
But that’s a question of personal taste in the end. :wink:

I’d really like to see an OshPark tutorial. I’d like to order the parts and try it. However while Ordering a custom circuit board seems really cool, I am not really sure what to send them.

Which projects might be easier to start with?

Would like a single battery driver but don’t have to have that

How is your soldering on small parts?

If you use Eagle to layut your board, all you have to do is upload OSHPARK with your Eagle .BRD file and they do the rest… none of that tedious mucking around with gerber files…

Exporting gerbers is that tedious?
Oshpark has choked on some .brds. Gerbers get processed smoothly.

I have found that if it chokes on the first try, resetting and trying again usually runs it…that is if the .brd meets the “rules” requirement…

Yeah, you have to run the CAM processor, find and possibly rename a lot of files, zip them together, and upload the zip. Much easier to just upload the .BRD file.

When OSHARK barfs on an upload, it appears to be due to their server being busy (it runs Eagle to processor the .BRD or Gerber files) and a timeout watchdog kicks in. You then have to re-upload the file and try again. It can happen with .BRD and Gerber files…

Or use my CAM processor which produces 8 files. Zip all of them into one zip file and OSHPark will read them without any issues.

Please ignore my poor spelling.


EDIT: To use the above CAM processor put the downloaded file into the the 'cam' directory under your Eagle installation directory. In Eagle, click the CAM Processor button and then select File > Open > Job. The folder that opens should be the cam directory. Select 'Matt_Gerber_Generater.cam' and then once it's loaded, select the Eagle layers you want to include in each Gerber layer (or leave the defaults) and click 'Process Job'.

Please note that I don't use the dimension, tplace or bplace layers as I use the miulling layer to define the outline of my board, as well as tDocu and bDocu for ALL my silkscreen.

Hi Rufus, the OSH Park Project - 7135 is OK and tested. The hybrid(DD) version may need a re-design. Can be used as is if only using 4x7135, 8x7135(stacked) or any from 1 to nx 7135 that you can fit. Cheers!

Thanks Tivo, I’ll need a link to the board at Oshpark so it works like the others. I can’t access anything earlier than July 30, 2013 to create a link in the op. Do they dump older files? And would we need to save them somewhere to re-upload if necessary?

I think OSHPark doesn’t have a search feature on their shared projects.
Here’s the link: TZF082A LED Driver - AMC7135

Cheers! :beer:

Check to make sure this link works, should be a cart pre-loaded with the parts for the SRK FET board.

http://www.digikey.com/short/mn9wj