Quick-Turn PCB Fab Hack Chat

July 29, 2019 by Dan Maloney No comments

Join us on Wednesday, July 31st at noon Pacific for the Quick-Turn PCB Fab Hack Chat with Mihir Shah!

We’ve all become used to designing a PCB and having it magically appear at our doorstep – after a fashion. Modern PCB fabs rely on economies of scale to deliver your design cheaply, at the expense of time – the time it takes to put enough orders onto a panel, and the time it takes to ship the finished boards from Far, Far Away.

Not everyone has that kind of time to burn, though. That’s where quick-turn fabs come in. These manufacturers specialize in getting boards to their customers as quickly as possible, helping them deal with sudden design changes or supporting specialty applications for customers.

It’s a niche industry, but an important one, and Royal Circuits is at the forefront. Mihir Shah is Director of Special Projects there, and he’s deep into the business of getting PCBs to customers as quickly as possible. He’ll drop by the Hack Chat to answer all your questions about how the quick-turn industry fits into the electronics manufacturing ecosystem, and to show off some of the tools of the future that they’re developing and investing in to streamline PCB design and analysis – from DebuggAR to PCBLayout.com, and more.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday July 31 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.

Crowd Supply Hack Chat With Josh Lifton

July 22, 2019 by Dan Maloney 2 Comments

Join us on Wednesday, July 24th at noon Pacific for the Crowd Supply Hack Chat with Josh Lifton!

When you’re ready to take your Next Big Idea from a project to a product, you face problems that don’t normally present themselves to the hobbyist. Building one of something is quite different from building many of them, and soon you’re dealing with issues with parts suppliers, PCB fabrication, assembly, packaging, shipping, marketing, and support.

It takes a lot to get your idea to market, and a guiding hand would be most welcome to the budding hardware tycoon. That’s the logic behind Crowd Supply, the Portland-based crowdfunding and mentoring company. Josh Lifton is its CEO, and he’ll drop by the Hack Chat to answer all your questions about how crowdfunding works, what Crowd Supply offers to help creators, and what the fundamentals of a successful project are.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday July 24 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

[Photo credit: Jon House, Portland Tribune]

Low-Level Analog Measurement Hack Chat

July 15, 2019 by Dan Maloney 4 Comments

Join us on Wednesday 17 July 2019 at noon Pacific for the Low-Level Analog Measurement Hack Chat with Chris Gammell!

A lot of electronics enthusiasts gravitate to the digital side of the hobby, at least at first. It’s understandable – an Arduino, a few jumpers, and a bit of code can accomplish a lot. But in the final analysis, digital circuits are just analog circuits with the mystery abstracted away, and understanding the analog side opens up a fascinating window on the world of electronics.

Chris Gammell is well-known around hacker circles thanks to his Amp Hour Podcast with Dave Jones, his KiCad tutorials, and his general hacker chops. He’s also got a thing for the analog world, and wants to share some of the tips and tricks he’s developed over his two decades as an electrical engineer. In the next Hack Chat, we’ll be joining Chris down in the weeds to learn the ins and outs of low-level analog measurements. Join us with your questions and insights, or just come along to peel back some of the mysteries of the analog world.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday July 17 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

Preserving Computer History Hack Chat

June 24, 2019 by Dan Maloney 6 Comments

Join us on Wednesday 26 June 2019 at noon Pacific for the Preserving Computer History Hack Chat with Dag Spicer!

In our age of instant access to the seeming total of human knowledge at the swipe of a finger, museums may seem a little anachronistic. But the information available at our fingertips is often only the tip of the iceberg, and institutions like the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California are dedicated to collecting and preserving the artifacts of the information age, capturing the intellectual capital that went into making them, and perhaps more importantly, providing context and making everything accessible.

The CHM is an incredible resource for anyone doing research involving the early days of computing. Dag Spicer is the Senior Curator at CHM, or “Chief Content Officer” as he likes to put it. Dag has been collecting, cataloging, and overseeing the largest collection of computer artifacts in the world for almost 25 years, and he has some stories to tell. He’ll stop by the Hack Chat this week to share them, and to answer your questions about the history of computers and how studying the past shapes the future of computing.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday June 26 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

EasyEDA Hack Chat With Dillon He

June 17, 2019 by Dan Maloney 7 Comments

Join us Wednesday at 5:00 PM Pacific time for the Easy EDA Hack Chat with Dillon He!

Note the different time than our usual Hack Chat slot! Dillon will be joining us from China.

Since the birth of electronic design automation in the 1980s, the universe of products to choose from has grown tremendously. Features from schematic editing to circuit simulation to PCB design and autorouting can be found in every permutation imaginable, and you’re sure to find something that fits your needs, suits your budget, and works on your platform.

Dillon He started EasyEDA back in 2010 with Eric Cui, and since then the cloud-based EDA tool has become a popular choice. From working across teams to its “run anywhere” capabilities, EasyEDA has become the go-to tool for hundred of thousands of designers. Dillon will drop by the Hack Chat to answer all your questions about EasyEDA — how it started, where it is now, and what we can expect in the future.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, June 19 at 5:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

Fusion 360 For 3D-Printing Hack Chat

June 10, 2019 by Dan Maloney 17 Comments

Join us on Wednesday 12 June 2019 at noon Pacific for the Fusion 360 for 3D-Printing Hack Chat with Vladimir Mariano!

There’s no way to overstate the importance of the design and manufacturing tools we now all use on a daily basis. What once took a well-equipped machine shop and years of experience to accomplish can now be designed using free software and built using 3D-printers and a host of other CNC tools, all right on the desktop.

The number of doors this manufacturing revolution has opened are uncountable, and through his popular Desktop Makes YouTube channel and other outlets, Vladimir’s mission is to help people navigate through this world and discover their inner maker. He co-founded the Fairfield County Maker’s Guild in Connecticut and founded the CT Robotics Academy. From 3D-printing and design to electronics and programming, Vladimir teaches it all. He’ll join us for the Hack Chat to discuss the desktop manufacturing revolution in general, plus answer your questions on his main tools, Fusion 360 and 3D-printing.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday June 12 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

Disrupting Cell Biology Hack Chat With Incuvers

June 3, 2019 by Dan Maloney No comments

Join us on Wednesday 5 June 2019 at noon Pacific for the Disrupting Cell Biology Hack Chat with Incuvers!

A lot of today’s most successful tech companies have creation myths that include a garage in some suburban neighborhood where all the magic happened. Whether there was literally a garage is not the point; the fact that modest beginnings can lead to big things is. For medical instrument concern Incuvers, the garage was actually a biology lab at the University of Ottawa, and what became the company’s first product started as a simple incubator project consisting of a Styrofoam cooler, a space blanket, and a Soda Stream CO2 cylinder controlled by an Arduino.

From that humble prototype sprang more refined designs that eventually became marketable products, setting the fledgling company on a course to make a huge impact on the field of cell biology with innovative incubators, including one that can image cell growth in real time. What it takes to go from prototype to product has been a common theme in this year’s Hack Chats, and Noah, Sebastian, and David from Incuvers will drop by Wednesday to talk about that and more.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday June 5 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.