Eagle 9 is out. Autodesk is really ramping up the updates to Eagle, so much so it’s becoming annoying. What are the cool bits this time? Busses have been improved, which is great because I’ve rarely seen anyone use busses in Eagle. There’s a new pin breakout thingy that automagically puts green lines on your pins. The smash command has been overhauled and now moving part names and values is somewhat automatic. While these sound like small updates, Autodesk is doing a lot of work here that should have been done a decade ago. It’s great.
Crypto! Bitcoin is climbing up to $9,000 again, so everyone is all-in on their crypto holdings. Here’s an Arduino bitcoin miner. Stats of note: 150 hashes/second for the assembly version, and at this rate you would need 10 billion AVRs to mine a dollar a day. This array of Arduinos would need 2 Gigawatts, and you would be running a loss of about $10 Million per day (minus that one dollar you made).
Are you going to be at Hamvention? Hamvention is the largest amateur radio meetup in the Americas, and this year is going to be no different. Unfortunately, I’ll be dodging cupcake cars that weekend, but there is something of note: a ‘major broadcaster’ is looking for vendors for a ‘vintage tech’ television series. This looks like a Canadian documentary, which adds a little bit of respectability to this bit of reality television (no, really, the film board of Canada is great). They’re looking for weird or wacky pieces of tech, and items that look unique, strange, or spark curiosity. Set your expectations low for this documentary, though; I think we’re all several orders of magnitude more nerd than what would be interesting to a production assistant. ‘Yeah, before there were pushbutton phones, they all had dials… No, they were all attached to the wall…”
The new hotness on Sparkfun is a blinky badge. What we have here is a PCB, coin cell holder, color changing LED, and a pin clasp. It’s really not that different from the Tindie Blinky LED Badge. There is, however, one remarkable difference: the PCB is multicolored. The flowing unicorn locks are brilliant shades of green, blue, yellow, pink, purple, and red. How did they do it? We know full-color PCBs are possible, but this doesn’t look like it’s using a UV printer. Pad printing is another option, but it doesn’t look like that, either. I have no idea how the unicorn is this colorful. Thoughts?
Defcon is canceled, but there’s still a call for demo labs. They’re looking for hackers to show off what they’ve been working on, and to coax attendees into giving feedback on their projects.
Same as lapel pins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwaUPP44V-E
Nah, surely its just using a standard PCB solder mask application process. You can see a clear white line around the edge of the colour fills which would be filled with the lapel paint filling process.
Also on: https://www.proto-pic.co.uk/unigeek-a-unicorn-badge-soldering-kit.html they mention finding a fab house that would do multicoloured boards at a reasonable price… I for one would love to know who!
Yep, you are right. Quick look on back side at letters g and e.Filing it would need micro-liter precision, not economic wise even with multiple dispensing heads. So only few colors, without mixing, as resist palette is finite.
…Or pure magic.It is unicorn after all.
Thanks for hotlinking my Arduino miner! Planning to put my kids through college with that some day.
Now do one using Tensorflow accelerators ;)
“The Unigeek is a unique badge soldering kit. We looked for a PCB house that was willing and capable of producing a PCB with a number of colours at a reasonable price and we finally found one!”
The answer is right in the beginning of the first paragraph, I’d say it’s a good enough answer.
Personally I thought the same thing in regards to enamel pins.
Except that’s not what was being asked. Brian wants to know *what technology* the PCB house used for the colours, not just “oh the PCB house did it somehow”.
Surely it’s just multicolour silkscreen? The registration looks suitably poor.
“This looks like a Canadian documentary, which adds a little bit of respectability to this bit of reality television (no, really, the film board of Canada is great).”
Use to watch them on sat, just shy of the border. Better TV than what the US use to sport back in the days before the internet.
The NFB is not a broadcaster. I can see, maybe, them making a film about “tech” or something like that, but ot wouldn’t necessarily air on tv. The CBC might air NFB documentaries, but not that many these days.
That pdf doesn’t really define much. Yes, everything may show up at Dayton, but it sounds like they are expecting “Big Bang Theory” types, which is an exaggeration of reality, and too focused on comic books and toys.
Is this really about “tech” or something like all those shows where people hope to find “great deals”? If it’s for the average person, it’s the wrong place. Bargains can be had, but most likely to be uninteresting to the average person. There’s a reason I got that TMC. GPR-90 shortwave receiver for $20 at a garage sale about 2012. I was the only one to pass by all day who showed an interest, and the next step would have been the garbage.
It might be nice to see a short film about amateur radio, using the Hamfest as a vector. But it doesn’t sound like that.
What indicates a Canadian broadcaster? We have hamfests here in Canada, though never as big as the big US ones.
Michael
“What indicates a Canadian broadcaster?”
im going to go with the 416 contact number and the insistence of using the country code before it. I think that it may end up being something like antique road show, i cant be for certain but with the wide range of tech in the pdf and the words: “you and the item will be filmed and possibly purchased” it seems like it might be some deal making show.
And it isnt necessarily the NFB, the film board comment is just a typical Benchoff comment, you know the kind where you cant tell if he is being sarcastic or serious. It could be PBS or any other major broadcaster with a Toronto office.
What do you mean Defcon is canceled? I could not find anything to back that up, and I looked for at two minutes.
Yeah, defcon is totally canceled. news just came down. I’m sure they’ll update the website soon.
Honestly, it took me a little over 3 minutes to find it. Don’t feel too bad.
yes, its official http://www.defcon.ws/
/x /x
I was looking into upgrading from the old 7.6…The Autodesk Currency Converter is slightly insane, though.
Eagle standard: 100 USD/year (which would correspond to 98 CHF)… So we charge 139.20 Francs. Even accounting for the 8 % VAT that is ripoff.
Eagle Premium: 500 USD/year, 702.34 CHF.
Thanks but no thanks
While Eagle is held under Autodesk’s cage I don’t expect to see any exciting news about it. Some of the new features are cool but none are a game changing.
ngspice integration is pretty awesome, though also currently pretty rough. THAT is a feature I’ve been after for ages, and it’s amazing it got added so quickly.
Admittedly I still have access to their full versions under the “free software for students” program, which is pretty amazing too.
Now to start Hackaday University, an OpenSource, Open Enrollment, Open Curriculum, college specializing in hardware/software development and research.
Some of the new features are exciting, But in my opinion Autodesk is holing this game back. However there are lots of cool people at hackaday, who has some good skill, and they can sure bring some positive change in the game.