Hand Placing Flash Die To Make USB Drives

SONY DSC

It’s a stretch to call this one a hack, but USB thumb drives are around us constantly and we always assumed that the boards inside were machine populated (like with a pick and place machine). [Bunnie] tells us otherwise. He recently had the chance to tour a factory where USB flash drives are made.

The image above shows a worker populating a set of boards with the flash memory dies. The waffle-grid to the right holds the dies. Each is a tiny glint of a component. The worker is not in a clean room, and is using a bamboo tool to pick up the pieces. [Bunnie] explains that he’s seen the tools before but doesn’t fully comprehend how they work. He figures that the hand-cut manipulator has just the right amount of grab to pick up the die, but will also release it when it touches down on the dot of glue applied to the landing zone on the board.

If you’re into this sort of thing you should check out the PCB factory tour we saw a couple of years back. The article link is dead but the embedded tour video still works.

[Thanks pl]

High Speed Circuit Design For Quantum Physics Light Sensing

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[Limpkin] designs circuits for a living. This board is one of his recent projects, and although his skills are light years ahead of our own experiences, he did a pretty good job of explaining how he put this board together.

He was tasked with measuring the light intensity of two photodiodes. The expected impulses picked up by those components will be less than a nanosecond in duration, putting some special design constraints upon him. To register this signal he’s using three cascading op-amps per input. To ward off false readings from RF interference he also designed in the shielding which you see surrounding the majority of the circuit.

His package choice for the THS3202 op-amps is quite interesting. He didn’t go with the footprint that includes a thermal pad to dissipate heat because he didn’t want to interrupt the ground plane on the underside of the board. To keep the parts from melting he added an aluminum spacer that contacts the top of the package, then a heat sink that covers the entire shield frame. In a future revision he figures he’ll move to a four-layer board so that the can opt for the MSOP package that does the work for him.

Gamma-ray Scintillation Probe In A Paint Can

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The [Prutchi] family sounds pretty cool. [David], the father, is a well educated engineer, has 70 patents, and has written two books. On his off time, he has a passion for making experimental physics accessible to the average Joe. His daughter [Shanni] is a high school student who co-authored one of those same books, and helps conduct research in the fields of Radio-Astronomy and Quantum Physics. Together, they came up with an affordable, yet very sensitive, gamma-ray scintillation probe for their customized Civil Defense V-700 radiation survey meter. Sweet.

They decided to use parts that were low cost and readily available so others could easily follow in their footsteps. A Philips XP5312/SN photomultiplier tube (PMT) and scintillation plastic are the main components.  The enclosure for the probe is a standard paint can, lined with polyurethane foam inserts to help protect the assembly and hold everything in place.

[David] says that since the probe is very portable and has a high level of sensitivity, it is an ideal candidate for radioactive mineral surveying and scouting miscellaneous gamma-ray sources. They documented the whole process and have compiled a handy PDF file for those who are interested in creating their own.

DIY PC To Telescope Interface Cable

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If you’re serious about astronomy these days, you want to have a computer controlled telescope. Although you can easily purchase a pre-made cable that connects the two devices, where’s the fun in that? [Charles], being an avid Maker, has created a nice step by step guide so you can build your own.

This is a great weekend project, and one that even a novice electronics hobbyist should be able to tackle. It’s straight forward, rather quick, and very easy. Strip some insulation off both ends of the cable, then cut off the unneeded wires. (You’ll only be working with three of them.) Prep everything with heat shrink tubing. Crimp one end of the wires into an RJ10 plug, then solder the other end of the wires into a DB9 connector. Secure the heat shrink tubing in place, attach the housings, and you can call it finished!

[Charles] said the whole procedure only took him around 15 minutes. Total cost? Less than $17 in parts.

Words Of Wisdom From A Maker Entrepreneur

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Have an awesome invention that you want to create and sell to the world? Think you have everything all planned out and you’re ready to just let the money flow in? Maybe not. Take a few moments and read [Jonathan]’s first hand experience of a maker start up business that didn’t go anything like he had planned.

[Jonathan] thought he was ready. He had created a unique product and, by taking pre-orders, didn’t have to front any of his own capital. He had shown that there was demand for such a device. The big problem…supply. Selling things was the easy part. Actually making them was another story. Every step of the way had complications. Printing errors, parts suppliers backed out, an international money transfer didn’t go through, postage rates increased, suppliers sent the wrong parts, and he and his wife had a baby. His stress levels were through the roof knowing that his customers had prepaid and were waiting through all the delays.

In the end, [Jonathan] learned a lot and survived the journey. He is currently working on his next invention. If you’d like to learn more about his experiences, you can message him personally.  There’s also a Pianocade features video after the break.

[via Adafruit]

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Assigning New Packages To Eagle PCB Components

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If you’ve spent any time at all laying out your own circuit boards we’re sure you’ve run into the issue of not having the right component or package available in the standard libraries. If it’s a common part, chances are the symbol definition will be there.  But perhaps the footprint you want to use is missing? Here’s an easy to follow tutorial which demonstrates how to assign new packages to existing Eagle PCB components. It even shows the basics of how to tweak the footprint to fit your needs (like making SMD footprints easier to hand solder).

This will not teach you how to make your own custom symbols, or how to build packages from scratch. But it will let you locate the package you want to use from a different component, then copy it to your own library for use with different parts. And the techniques shown make this a quick and relatively painless process.

We certainly don’t want to start another comment quagmire like the recent PIC v. AVR discussion. But we’ve used both Kicad and Eagle rather extensively and feel that neither one has really mastered part/footprint creation in a user-friendly way. We like Kicad’s total separation of footprints from components, and it’s myriad of parameters which can be used to tweak the layout. But if you use the same components frequently, Eagle’s standard of linking parts and footprints does end up saving a lot of time. What do you think?

DIY Space Experiments Within A Ping Pong Ball ‘satellite’

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Ahhh space. The final frontier. While many people dream of one day becoming an astronaut (and possibly battling aliens or cylons), it’s a select few who actually make it their reality. Fortunately for us, there’s a middle ground that allows the masses to still have some fun in the sky. Enter the “Pongsat” program – space experiments within a ping pong ball.

Created by JP Aerospace, this free program allows anyone to create their own mini experiment and send it off to the edge of space. The imagination is the limit. Curious if a marshmallow will expand? Interested what the temperature would be? Wonder if you can charge a solar battery? Stuff it inside a ping pong ball and find out!

Check out the PDF Users Guide to get started, then their Blog and Facebook page for more up to date information.  Now go out there and get your experiment to Mars! (Or at least 100,00 feet)

Watch a video of in flight footage after the break.

[via adafruit]
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