Can you give a quick overview of yourself?
Protostack is based in Brisbane Australia and have been operating since 2008. We started because we were frustrated with the prototyping/perf boards available on the market and decided to design our own.
Tinkerlog’s Alexander on Tinkering
Who are you?
My name is Alexander Weber from Tinkerlog, I live in Hamburg, Germany and I am a freelance Developer for Android and Arduino as well. In my spare time I have fun building stuff with electronics and write about it on my blog .
How did you get in to electronics?
As a kid, like many of us, I think,
Massimo Banzi from Arduino on Cool Projects and Inspiration
I was lucky enough to get an interview with Massimo Banzi, one of the co-founders of Arduino. Here is what he has to say:
My Experience With Using the Eagle Command Line
The Eagle command line is a way of typing commands into Eagle. Not sure how it looks? Well here it is:
How To Design an Eagle Ground Plane
An Eagle ground plane is a plane of metal connected to ground. It is very useful for simplifying the routing of a board. If the major part of a layer is ground, you don’t need to design long traces to connect a pin to the ground.
Reflow Soldering Made Easy
Reflow soldering is a very effective method for soldering circuit boards with lots of surface mount components. But is this something you can do as a hobbyist?
Yes it is :)
Pre-requisites
To do reflow soldering, you should have the following tools:
- Solder paste in a syringe
- Flux
- Tweezers
And one of the following:
- A hot plate/skillet
- A toaster oven
- A “real” reflow oven
Beginner’s Guide to Eagle CAD
Have you tried the Eagle CAD software, but found it a bit confusing?
Don’t worry, I was also a bit confused the first time I tried it. In this guide I will teach you the basics on how to use Eagle, so that you’ll be able to start designing your own electronic circuits.
A Simple Guide to LED Types
There are a few different LED types. When you buy LEDs from an electronic component distributor, you are usually faced with a lot of different choices.
How I Learned The Flashing Light Circuit
The flashing light circuit was the first circuit I ever built.
I was at home and probably around 14 years old at the time. I was walking between the television and my computer as I used to. I would surf the net, then I’d hear something interesting from the television which my mom and dad was watching and I would walk over to see. Then back again to my computer.
I was pretty bored. But this was my routine.
Types of Resistors and How To Choose One
Did you know there are many types of resistors?
Your electronic schematic tells you that you need a resistor of 100k Ohms. Ok, so you go to an online store to buy one. But there you get all these choices: Thin film, carbon composition, metal film +++.
“Just give me a freaking 100k resistor man!”, you scream in despair.
Believe me, I know your frustration. It took me a long time to actually bother reading about different types of resistors. So I just chose random resistors for all my electronic circuits. Usually, it worked flawlessly. Maybe I was lucky or maybe I just didn’t identify the resistor as the problem when I had a problem.
Anyway, my aim here is to provide a simple guide on how to choose a resistor without diving deep into details.
How to Choose the Right Capacitor Types
“What capacitor types should I choose?”
This is a question asked by many beginners. I will give you a simple answer to this question without going into all the details. After reading this, my goal is that you should be able to go and find the capacitor you need right away.
Free PCB Design Software
There are many PCB design software solutions available. The software you use should be able to draw both schematics and printed circuit boards.
And it should be able to output Gerber files that you can send to a PCB manufacturer and get your board made.
Below I’ve compiled a list of three free cross-platform programs available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS.
I have copied their own description of themselves from each of their websites. Just to give you an idea of what they are about (or at least how they like to present themselves).
And at the end, I’ll let you know my favorite ;)
How To Create Custom Eagle Components
In this tutorial I am going to teach you how to create custom Cadsoft Eagle components.
The part we are creating is a battery holder for a 9V battery from Keystone Electronics. This part is sold by both DigiKey and Farnell, so it is easy to get your hands on.
How To Choose Types of Solder to Use For Electronic Circuits?
Because it seems to be so many types of solder out there, choosing which solder to purchase can be confusing.
When I started out in electronics I had no clue, so I just used whatever solder I could find. But did you know that solder is not only used for soldering electronics?
Actually, solder is also used for plumbing.
And the solder used for plumbing should definitely not be used for electronics as it contains acid!
By Ilja at de.wikipedia [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons
Using a Gerber Viewer To Check For Errors
A Gerber viewer is a great tool to use before you submit a PCB design to fabrication. This way, you will see exactly what you are sending to the fab house and you might find potential problems that aren’t easily spotted in the layout editor.
