Moving to Flagg’it blog ! – Transfert de blog vers www.flagg-it.com

(Version française en dessous)

Hello dear readers !

I am glad to announce you that we are creating a blog on our website : http://www.flagg-it.com.
All my posts are going to be transfered to this blog, and I will continue to post on Flagg’it’s blog.

If you want to follow me, just go to http://www.flagg-it.com, blog section will appear soon. You can also register to our website to remain informed.

See you soon !

—

Bonjour à vous chères lectrices et chers lecteurs !

Je suis heureux de vous annoncer que nous sommes en train d’ajouter une section blog à notre site web : http://www.flagg-it.com.
Tous mes posts sont en train d’être transférés vers ce blog et je continuerai à poster sur le nouveau blog.

Si vous souhaitez continuer à me suivre, il vous suffit de vous rendre à l’adresse http://www.flagg-it.com, la section blog ne va pas tarder à arriver. Vous pouvez aussi vous inscrire en bas de la page web pour rester informé sur les avancée du projet Flagg’it.

A bientôt !

Alexandre Thevenot   |   alexandre.thevenot.pro@gmail.com
Flagg’it Co-Founder   |   @alexthevenot

Create your own PCB – The result !

Hello everybody !

I finally received my PCB ! And see what it looks like, so beautiful ! (Hum hum ..)

And three hours laters, all the components where soldered on it !
(let’s see this blog if you want more information about DIY surface soldering)

All the components were bought on Digi-Key, SeeedStudio or Sparkfun.

Well, now the question is, will it work ? You should have the answer in the next post !

Bye !

Wireless powering module

Hi guys ! Hope everything is good for you.

I’m still waiting for my PCB but I already received the wireless powering module and I couldn’t wait to do some tests.

Wireless powering/charging? Have you ever heard about smartphone charging wirelessly? It’s the new trend, all these phones are wirelessly chargeable.

That means if you have one of these phones and you find a Qi spot (from Wireless Power Consortium), just put your phone on it and it will charge.

Crazy technology isn’t it? That’s what I think and I want it for my electronic project!
So there it is, I bought a module to test it and try it on the project, and it works!

The test circuit is quite simple:

• The wireless charging module, found on SeeedStudio for 7.90$ (you can find the specifications on the website)
• A 12V battery to power the transmitter
• Something to power with 5V at the output of the receiver
• A voltmeter to see the actual output voltage

Next step is to integrate it to the project, but before I’m still waiting for my PCB !

I hope next post will deal about it.

See you next week !

Create your own PCB – Step 3 : Board Layout

Hello everybody!

It’s been a while, I’m sorry, holydays you know…

I have finally ordered the PCB for my prototype and I’m currently waiting for the delivery, so I have time to write a new post.
Well, first advice I can give you is to watch this video from Jeremy Blum which is really well explained, and show you all the steps to design your board layout :

There is not much left to be done, right? So, now I will present you my own job!
Do you remember the prototype made with Arduino modules? (here)

Tadaaa, now it’s a one piece PCB of 4×4.5 cm² (It’s still a prototype, it’s not the final size!) :

Top view

Bottom view

The problem is… I can’t already know if everything will work. Even if I have verified the board layout at least a thousand of times, I may have missed an error.
Once I receive the board, I will show you the result!

In a next post I will give you my experience about going into production (generating Gerber files, finding and buying components, and ordering the PCB).

Thank you for following! And feedbacks are welcome!

Create your own PCB – Step 2 : Schematics

Hi guys !

As promised, today I will talk to you about drawing your schematics.

For those who may ignore it, a schematic is the abstract representation of all the components (microcontrollers, resistors, capacitors, LEDs, motors, etc.) you will implement in your circuit.
To give you an idea of what it looks like, here is the schematic for Arduino Micro (from Arduino website):

It may seem a bit complicated but when you take your time to read and analyze it, you realize it’s quite simple (especially this one).

My purpose is not to explain to you how to use Eagle, others do it way better than me. You can find the official tutorial on the Cadsoft website or even a great video tutorial on Youtube. There is a large community around Eagle and all your questions have probably already been asked and answered.

In this post I only want to notify some important points (to me).

The first thing is that it’s really important to have a good idea of your final circuit and you should know almost all the components you need.

Even if you are eager to work on your project, it’s a good idea to practice yourself on Eagle with some simple exemples like the one on the video tutorial to learn Eagle tools. This will help you avoid doing ten times the same schematic because there is always something wrong.

One last thing is to well understand how you can make and use your own components library. For the same reason, you will save much time.

Once your schematic is done and twice verified, we can go one step further with the board layout.

Thank you again for reading, and don’t hesitate to give me feedback ! (Is it useful, interesting, none of them ? Do you want topics on other fields ?)