​Here is the exciting schedule for the Open Hardware Summit on March 13th in NYC:

Be sure to buy tickets before they are sold out!

After a successful first year of KiCon in 2019 in Chicago, it will change venues to CERN, a major contributor to the KiCad project!

KiCon 2020: A KiCad conference at CERN, September 11th-13th, 2020

More details soon! If you’re interested in being involved, the following email addresses can be used to contact the right people about this event:

• Sponsorship: sponsors@kicad-kicon.com
• Media: media@kicad-kicon.com
• All other inquiries: help@kicad-kicon.com

​Join us for the Open Hardware Summit on March 13th in New York City!

It will be the 10th anniversary and Sophi Kravitz will be giving a keynote. More speakers will be announced soon.

Tickets are on sale now!

Thanks to Anool Mahidharia for posting on Hackaday about KiCad plugins. I decided to try out the Teardrop plugin by NilujePerchut:

KiCad Teardrop Plugin

This action plugin adds and deletes teardrops to a PCB.

This implementation uses zones instead of arcs. This allows to comply with DRC rules by simply rebuild all zones. You can also modify their shape by simply modifying the zone outline (like any other zone). Teardrops created with this script use a specific priority (0x4242) to be recognized as teardrops.

Here is the result of my first experiment to use the Teardrop plugin on a flexible PCB to reduce the mechanical stress of flexing the trace:

The board is available as an OSH Park shared project and the KiCad design files are on GitHub.

The author of the plugin was very responsive to GitHub issues and I was able to get better results on my next flex design which is currently being manufactured:

My flex “business card” will fold over a coin cell battery to light a 0603 LED.

Curious how the plugin works? It creates zones next to the vias and pads. Here are the two teardrop zones that connect traces to a via:

Warning: you need create a schematic and generate a netlist before starting the PCB layout. Otherwise the the zones the plugin creates won’t be filled:

You also need to be careful that there is not copper on the same layer too close to the zone. For example, the text was too close to the teardrop zone on this via, so I moved the text down and the zone now fills correctly:

An open GitHub issue is that the teardrop zone does not align perfectly for SMD pads that are not circles (like rectangles, squares, rounded rectangles). The work around I used was to move the zone after it is filled to align with my SMD pad:

I hope you have fun with this plugin and leave a comment if you use it your own design!

UPDATE: I joined Adafruit Show-n-Tell to talk about flex PCBs and the teardrop plugin at 10 min 51 sec mark

Drew Fustini 🔜 #36c3 📞 TUX3 on Twitter

@kicad_pcb @adafruit @helenleigh @oshpark I show the flex PCB that used the @kicad_pcb teardrop plugin at the 10 min 51 sec mark on @adafruit show-n-tell https://t.co/kDWI2LcIuR

The addition of SDRAM provides enough memory to boot Linux on a RISC-V soft-core in the ECP5 FPGA on the badge. Here’s a screenshot of Linux running:

Read more about “Team Linux on Badge” in this Hackaday post:

A Fantastic Frontier Of FPGA Flexibility Found In The 2019 Supercon Badge

And finally, receiving the biggest applause was Linux-on-Badge: this team used all the badge hacking tricks in the book. The hardware component was a 32 MiB SDRAM cartridge by [Jacob Creedon]. The default badge SOC FPGA bitstream was entirely replaced in order to support a minimalist Linux. Much of the development was done on [Michael Welling]’s computer, guided by the precedence of a LiteX project putting Linux on the Radiona ULX3S. This is a true success story of Supercon collaboration as the team (including [Drew Fustini], [Tim Ansell], [Sean Cross], and many others) came together and worked late into nights, drawing from the massive body of collective expertise of the community.

Watch the demo during the Badge Hacking ceremony (jump to 17m 35s):

Resources:

• KiCad design files are available on GitHub: jcreedon/dram-cart
• Modification to LiteX for the FPGA to use the SDRAM: mwelling/litex-boards
• Shared project on OSH Park: Hackaday Supercon badge SDRAM cartridge

CircuitBrains Deluxe

I love Adafruit’s CircuitPython product line. The ability to just plug your board into USB, make code changes, and see them take effect in real-time is amazing. However, when it comes to finishing up a CircuitPython project, I felt limited in choice for a small form-factor, streamlined board. I always ended up creating my own boards. The overhead in doing this was huge though. You have to make sure your design has proper power, decoupling, and clock. Then you source all of the parts. After that you lay out the PCB and have it fabricated. When the PCB and parts arrive, you have to deal with finicky small-pitch surface mount assembly. Finally, you need to download the sources for the UF2 bootloader and CircuitPython and define your board, compile, and flash. This makes what should be a small project pretty time consuming and tedious!

Kevin Neubauer on Twitter

IT'S ALIVE!!! 😳😀😁. Anyone out there interested in @CircuitPython in a castellated module package? Would be great for #BadgeLife addicts. It's 1.25 inches (32 mm) square. Side note: I honestly had not expected USB to work over wire leads. PCB by @oshpark. https://t.co/nakF5CkGx9

Chris Gammell writes on the Contextual Electronics about the first ever user focused KiCad conference, which is happening April 26th and 27th 2019 in Chicago (USA):

KiCon 2019

As you may know, KiCad is a very big part of CE. We use it in every design we showcase on the CE site. We’re hoping that some of you will decide to take your learnings and share them at KiCon 2019. We’re looking for speakers to give talks about how they are using KiCad in their jobs, businesses and schooling. Or just how you use it for fun! Please apply to give a talk here! There are no requirements on how advanced you are as a user, so talks could be something like, “My perspective on getting started in KiCad”.

Please also consider attending! We’ll also have the opportunity to give feedback to developers and help brainstorm what else is needed for KiCad. Not only that, but we’ll be able to interact with other KiCad users and share tips and tricks. We’re also planning a layout contest and other fun interactive activities.

Not able to make it? Please help spread the word about KiCon! (Example tweet here, though any promotion is appreciated) In return, we promise to record and share the talks from the conference so you can view them later.

And finally, if your company has the means, please consider supporting KiCon as a sponsor.

Shared project by Rob Rehr (@mediumrehr) to connect Wii controllers to #badgelife add-on header:

Wii_SAO_gerbers

All the Open Hardware Summit 2018 talks are now available as individual videos on YouTube

The Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) 2018–2020 Board Nominations are now open

OSHWA is looking for 6 new faces to join the board of directors for the Open Source Hardware Association. The nominee form is for self-nominations only.

Please fill out the nominee form (deactivated Nov. 4th) to become a nominee or forward the link to someone you want to nominate. Do not fill out the form for someone else. The purpose of this form is to tell voting members why you want to serve on the OSHWA board. We will be publish the nominees and their answers on Nov. 5th. Board members hold a 2-year position.

Once board members have been chosen by the community, the board will appoint a President, VP, and Secretary. Board responsibilities include fundraising, advising on goals and direction, and carry out compliance with the organizations purposes and bylaws. See the board member agreement to get a sense of the responsibilities. Board members are expected to adhere to the board attendance policy and come prepared having read the board packet. Board members are expected to spend 5–10 hours of time per month on OSHWA. Nominees can submit questions to info@oshwa.org. Nominations will be open until Nov. 4th.

Member voting will take place Nov. 8–12. Want to vote in the election? Become a member! Please note that only individuals can vote, corporate members cannot.