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DIY Arduino Schematic board and Checklist

DIY Arduino Schematic Banner

One of the last significant steps in a project is designing the custom PCB. This stage means creating a DIY Arduino board that is custom to the application. Two examples of my past projects are BinBoo, a Binary Clock, and Open Vapors, my reflow oven controller.

While working on a project for a friend, I got to thinking; it would be nice to have a checklist for circuit elements to include on a DIY Arduino board. In the early days, I forgot to add a filter cap to AREF, for example.

These tips are based on an 8-bit AVR design, like the ATmega328p chip. You could apply these tips to other 8-bit AVRs. Until now, I have not designed a custom board around a 32-Bit/ARM board. Though at only $16, I would be tempted to just solder the Teensy module directly to my finished board.

Below is a written list of items for a DIY Arduino checklist. If you’d like to see me design this board in KiCad, check out this AddOhms Tutorial.

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PicoScope 2204 Review and Hands-On

picoscope 2204 review

If you need a reason to be an Element 14 member, let me suggest their Road Test program. Companies partner with Element14 to get people to try out their gear. A couple of years ago I got a new microcontroller board. This week I received a new test instrument. Here’s my hands-on Picoscope 2204 review.

The scope is bus powered. With the BNCs and type-B USB connector, it is slightly larger than an external USB hard drive. There is not much weight to the device. It does not feel cheap, just lighter than I expected.

Getting the scope up and running is a breeze. Pico Tech included a CD (or DVD?) to install the software, but I could not find my drive to check it out. Software downloads from Pico Tech’s website work great. It looks like you can even download the software and use it in “Demo mode” if you are curious how it works–without purchasing anything.

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Share projects on one of these 4 platforms

share projects

Sharing is the maker community’s foundation. When you share projects with others, you contribute to the community. In the past, you might just post your project on a personal website. Today there are many options to share projects.

This weekend I “finished” my reflow oven controller, Open Vapors. Believe it or not, five years ago there were not a bajillion similar projects. In fact, I based my design on the only completely open source project I found. It is a reflow oven controller Arduino shield from Rocket Scream.

After completing my controller, I was excited to share the project. Then I started to think about where to post the files. Obviously, here at baldengineer.com is one option. But I wondered. Is there a better place where others could benefit from my work?

This post is a few notes on the platforms used to share projects. At first, these might seem like they all serve the same purpose. From a high level that is true. However, there are small differences that you should consider when you share projects with the open source hardware community.

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Social Media Guide for Engineers, a How-To

Social Media Guide for Engineers
[featured-image link=”https://www.baldengineer.com/social-media-guide-engineers.html” link_single=”inherit” single_newwindow=”false” alt=”Social Media Guide for Engineers” title=”Attribute”]Bloomicon / Shutterstock.com[/featured-image]

Engineers are notorious introverts. An untrue generalization is that introverts hate being social. Like all humans, introverts are social creatures. We just prefer only to discuss the topics which are of interest to us. We will listen to anything. This social media guide for engineers explains why and how you can participate in social media, without being social.

Let’s address something head-on. Gone are the days of just “here’s what I ate” or “I’m in the bathroom” social posts. Social media channels are mature platforms for communication. Sure, junk still exists. However. You can filter out the signal from the noise when you following my social media guide for engineers.

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Bald Engineer’s Top 2015 Stuff

baldengineer's top 2015 posts

As 2015 wraps up, I took a look at baldengineer.com’s traffic for the past year. Here’s some of the most popular stuff from my blog, in case you missed it.

Everyone with a blog looks at their traffic numbers. For me, traffic data provides feedback on what tutorials or posts are helping people most. Each year, the traffic to my blog grows at ridiculous numbers. As someone with both an engineering and marketing background, I find the numbers impossible to believe.

Thank you to everyone who reads, shares, and comments the stuff I create. Those of you on the mailing list, I appreciate the interaction we have there, please keep writing in!

Check out these posts if you didn’t catch them the first time.

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