May
06
May
06
It seemed like a good idea at the time…
8/13/2008
It seemed like a good idea at the time…
Famous last words.
I was so excited to finally be using professionally-made PCBs. I spent a week researching the subject – how to make Gerber files, best layout practices (applied when possible, heh,) DRC (Design Rule Check) expectations and, most importantly, customer opinions.
I found this article to be quite helpful, and followed the links therein. After checking around I decided to go with Gold Phoenix. They had great reviews and are utilized by Sparkfun Electronics. I used the min/max tolerances stated here on Sparkfun’s BatchPCB site. The restrictions listed on the Gold Phoenix site are actually even closer tolerances, see #22 for “Outer Layer Line Width/Spacing”. I sent my order to Shane in Toronto, who was actually quite helpful and told me when my Gerbers were out of spec/missing dimensions. My Trace spacing was (accidentally – IMPORTANT NOTE TO EAGLE USERS: when you copy and paste your .brd file to make a large panel the DRCs do not tag along for the ride, you will need to re-enter them) 8mil for pours – tight, but in spec.
When the PCBs arrived – apparently, they had been delayed due to a holiday, the dangers of international commerce – I looked them over and thought they looked good. They had even made more than I had requested (as in the article on Near Future Laboratory.) Then I started building.
ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE. So far, 60% of the Plague Bearer boards have been bad, and the two Parasite boards I attempted to build were bad as well. The types of anomalies varied as well. As you can see in this image:
>
the etch was incomplete and left “short hairs” (my words) that are a pain to find. Each one is in a different place, some out in the open as in the image (and the easiest to find), while others were hidden under the silkscreening. You can also see a spot that has been over-etched. These errors all looked like a fiber had been laying across the board during etching.
The first few were discovered after I had built a couple Plague Bearers and found them working erratically. Then came the good old joy of troubleshooting! I’ve always had the approach of 1) Assume I screwed up or spaced out and forgot something, then 2) Verify components are good, and 3) Check the PCB. Which meant the errors took a while to find.
The short hairs are easy enough to fix once they’ve been found. Just a quick gouge with my homemade scraper/gouging tool and the boards were good to go. Now that I know what’s going on, I just check the boards with my continuity tester before assembly and fix the shorts. Not so simple with the Parasites.
>
As you can see in the picture, there is no pour due to component density. Therefore, these boards had the OPPOSITE problem: over-etching. It took me two boards and 14 hours a day for six days to find these bastards; they were all buried under silkscreening. The Parasite would work intermittently, flexing the board a little would make it stop working, or sometimes the unit would only work when warm – I found this one after I tested one, thought it good, and then went to bed. I checked it again in the morning and it didn’t work. What a mess.
Following all this, I’m forced to rescind the availability of the Parasites until I can get some reliable boards; these ones are just too much trouble to check. I’ll put some good news up in a few days, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
~flight
posted by flight at 3:57 PM 
May
06
Where the noise is…
10/07/2008
Where the noise is…
There’s a forum discussing the Plague Bearer! Makes me as giddy as a school girl. Come check it out at muffwiggler, Several PB owners have chimed in their views, humanfaculties even posted an excellent demo of his Plague Bearer hooked up to his gear. Many thanks and appreciation to everyone, this has made it all feel worthwhile!
~flight
posted by flight at 8:22 PM
May
06
Customizations
8/13/2008
Customizations
So much for a couple of days until posting again, heh.
Not many people have taken me up on this, so I though I would mention it again: I have no problems making little changes and customizations to a product. If it’s really simple, I probably won’t charge extra for it – but I decide what simple is, since I have to do it :). Some have asked for custom graphics, others for special jacks – I even managed to squeeze some banana jacks in the panel for one customer, along with a rear ground jack.
For those that want just assembled boards, each Plague Bearer filter channel is an independent board, so you can order as many channels as you like. I’ll have some pictures up after I build another one. I can also make a graphics overlay for the panel you want to attach it to; I’ll have some more details on that in a few days.
~flight
posted by flight at 4:09 PM
May
06
Plague Bearer Eurorack Modules Available
9/30/2008
Plague Bearer Eurorack Modules Available
They are finally ready – PB Modules!
I’ve also added an “available products” menu to the upper right of this page.
posted by flight at 5:57 PM
May
06
The Parasite is here
7/05/2008
The Parasite is here
The Parasite lives! The web page is here. There are now 10 available, potentially a few more in the near future but no promises there. I’ve got to say, this little bastard kicked my ass a few times until I beat it into submission! The design process goes like this:
- Have a few circuits floating around yer gray matter.
- See a really cool case that just begs to be used.
- See how many controls you can fit into the available panel area.
- Now, how many I/Os can be finagled therein?
- Which of the aforementioned circuits match the number determined in #3 above?
- Start cramming!
- Cuss, curse, rage, pout and otherwise terrify your neighbors until the circuit has been whittled down sufficiently to fit.
- Hope like Hell that somebody makes the components you need in the dimensions you require.
- My least favorite part: assuming the previous item works out, try to find a distributor that carries the damn thing!
- Wash, rinse, repeat as necessary.
ANYway… pics of the prototype are up. Go look! Orders are now being taken, please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery.
~flight
posted by flight at 6:20 PM
May
06
fixed?
7/27/2008
fixed?
Just finished(?)tweaking the site. A few browser compatibility issues were pointed out to me yesterday (IE7 of course), and I’ve been trying to get them all fixed. I’ve tested it out in Firefox2, IE7, Opera, and Safari – should work better now. Let me know if I missed anything please!
~flight
posted by flight at 3:53 PM
May
06
yay, money…
2/08/2008
yay, money…
Sorry for the delay. Funds for development ran out, so I am currently doing some work to get some more cash. I hope to resume development – and add more to this site – in a week or two.
~flight
posted by flight at 7:49 AM