kicad

Wow.. check out what just landed on KiCad developers mailing list!

Thanks to the work of Thomas Spindler, we'll soon see many improvements in KiCad's 3D rendering tool.. Check it out!

Just a quick note to let you know that I had an error in my footprint for the MS5611-01BA. The spacing between the pads I used was 0.5mm while it's actually 0.625mm.. not an huge error but still something to fix.

The repositories of my KiCAD library, the MS5611-01BA breakout board and FreeIMU v0.4 have been fixed.

As a first step in the development of FreeIMU v0.4, I'm starting my first steps with the MS5611-01BA high resolution altimeter sensor. According to its datasheet, this chip looks extremely accurate as it's capable of a 10 cm resolution in altitude estimation.

I already sorted out most of its electrical connections when I drafted the first designs of FreeIMU v0.4, however I wanted to start testing it before having FreeIMU v0.4 PCBs ready, just to start experiencing a little with it.

So, I designed a very simple breakout board for it. I tried to keep the design as simple as possible to allow etching a PCB from it, something I'll try in the next days. For this design I choose to use the I2C bus as it's the one I'm more experienced with, however the chip also supports SPI.

You can find the schematics in the attachments below. The KiCAD designs of the breakout board for the MS5611-01BA, released under CC-BY-SA, on my personal repository using Bazaar (bzr), with the following command:

bzr co http://repository.varesano.net/LibreBB_MS5611-01BA/ 

Below a picture of it.

The ADXL346 is the new smaller version of the ADXL345, the accelerometer used in FreeIMU version 0.1 and 0.2. So, I designed a simple breakout board for it.

Kicad sources for this breakout board can be obtained from my personal repository using bzr using the following command:

bzr co http://repository.varesano.net/LibreBB_ADXL346/

So, there you have it. Designed with the wonderful libre software KiCAD and released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported so you are free to do whatever you like with it, just remember to share alike your modified version so that we can keep the libre hardware ball rolling.

I'm getting 6 of these breakout boards on the next Dorkbot PDX pcb order, so if you want one get in touch!

I just finished designing a breakout board for the HMC5883L. Just a very simple breakout board, just for me to get started with this new chip. Actually it's just a smaller and more fast and accurate version of the HMC5843, schematics are really similar to that chip.

Btw, here you have it. Designed with the wonderful libre software KiCAD and released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported so you are free to do whatever you like with it, just remember to share alike your modified version so that we can keep the libre hardware ball rolling.

For best results you will need also to get my personal kicad library, where you find the footprint and schematic module for the HMC5883L.

Kicad sources for this breakout board can be obtained from my personal repository using bzr using the following command:

bzr co http://repository.varesano.net/LibreBB_HMC5883/

I'm no more adding zip files to this kind of posts as it is too time consuming to keep the attached archives updated with the current designs. You'll have to stick with bzr. The schematics are attached at the bottom of this page.

Here some picture of the design:

UPDATE 2011/03/29:

Assembled first batch of breakout boards. They are working great! See picture below.

I think that it could be useful for people having access to my KiCAD library. Everything is licensed using a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

You can get access to it using bzr with the following command:

bzr co http://repository.varesano.net/fv_kicad_lib/

This is like fresh air.. Just came out from fabrication.. and just arrived into James hands.. now.. FedEX to me this time.

I feel good!

FreeIMU v0.2

Femtoduino v0.1

Femtoduino Breakout Board v0.1

I2C logic level converter

I just finished designing a breakout board for the upcoming Invensense MPU6050. The chip has a gyroscope and a accelerometer and it's capable of polling data from a third party magnetometer (or any other i2c device).

On the various press launches about this chip you might read that it does sensor fusion on chip.. personally, I'm still skeptical about that as the same has been told about the IMU3000 but so far nothing about that is described on the IMU3000 datasheet.

A comment on Sparkfun's Digital IMU breakout of the IMU300, by Hypernova, perfectly describe my feelings:

UPDATE 2011-02-16: Femtoduino has now its own project page where you will find all the design sources and all the informations on it.

As a personal learning exercise and challenge to myself, I designed an ultrasmall Arduino compatible board based on the ATMEGA 328P in the QFN/MLF32 package.

Using the smallest 328P uC currently available, very small package components (eg 0402 caps and resistors) and 0.05" headers I've been able to design an Arduino compatible board which is only 20.7x15.2 mm.

Given that the Arduino Pro Mini, currently the smallest Arduino board available, is 34x18 mm and I restricted myself to use a 2 side PCB, I think I accomplished a pretty good result.

I called this board Femtoduino. Have a look at the schematics. Of course this will be a free (as in speech) hardware.

I plan to submit this board to the DorkbotPDX group PCB order of the 3rd January and I'm currently looking for reviews for the project. So, if you have knowledge of this topics please have a look at the Femtoduino designs.

You can get the Kicad sources (as of 30-12-2010) from the attachments below. I'm using a weekly updated version of Kicad, so if you have problems with older versions of Kicad you can try use a recent snapshot for Windows or Ubuntu 10.10.

You can get the most updated sources from my personal repository using bzr with the following command:

bzr co http://repository.varesano.net/Femtoduino

Thanks for your help!

UPDATE 2011-01-28:

I've been able to reflow solder femtoduino and all it's components, including 0402 capacitors! See a picture of Femtoduino!

UPDATE 2011-01-29:

Femtoduino is alive!

Some time ago I created my first homebrew breakout board PCB for an ADXL345 accelerometer. After getting more experienced and testing the whole procedure some times I created a new and improved version.

In the attachments below you find all the Kicad sources needed to edit the design or printing the design by yourself.

All the designs are released under the Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licence.

To show you how this works I created a video description: