IoT experimentation, midi pipe organ pedals and remote controlled passive XLR summer

I feel kind of stupid for making those mistakes. The unrouted NRST didn't get detected because the net names didn't match (typo...) so that's that.

The other VDD to GND short was because of a last minute refactor of the schematic (shouldn't have done that), and the final one is because I was a bit too confident when making the footprint for the USB.

In summary (as this is my first SMT with a lot of custom footprints) I'm more happy about everything I got right than annoyed about the things that were wrong.

I used ST-Link utility for flashing the STM32 with Espruino. I notice the serial bootloader article does not mention it as an option. Would you like me to contribute a short How To for it? It is dead simple but may be good for first-time-flashing-STM Windows users.

It'd be great if you could add something. There is this page: http://www.espruino.com/AdvancedDebug

But it could probably do with linking in a bit better.

So it is finally time to pull the trigger on getting a proper lab/workbench set up at home.

Here's my plans:

The board area is 180cm * 90cm and I've divided it up in PC (home studio, gaming and CAD) and EE.
I'll have to buy everything except the PC and the audio stuff.

Let me know if I'm missing something important (I've got a fluke on my way, didn't forget DMM ;) ) or if you have ideas / criticism / love / hate etc.

Extremely exiting times ahead for the little kid in me :)

EDIT: Oh, and the table itself is extremely rugged. Got it free from a company (Texas Instruments) that had to move (they were our neighbors) - so thank you TI for that! I think it should be able to support this stuff (time will tell....)

You won't be able to see what's in the parts drawers with them on the top shelf like that. A parts drawer must be at eye level or lower to be useful (from experience).

Is that a computer on the desktop?! Why? How often do you have to touch your computer? (for USB, put a powered USB hub on the end of a cable). Put the computer on that top shelf near the ceiling, instead of the drawers.

Around 16 - maybe a wire reel suspended from the top?

Also, is the height on that right? That looks very tall there, considering that it's starting at your desk height, and that desk you say is 1.8m x 0.9m.

Monitor on it's own support? No, monitor stands are cheap now, either that bolt to wall or clamp to desk. Once you've tried it, you'll never go back. That monitor base just seems to promote clutter and debris - getting that off the desk frees up more space than you'd expect. I keep one of my power supplies tucked under and behind my monitor.

Didn't bother looking up the equipment part numbers - no comment on those.

Awesome feedback, thanks!

Regarding the computer, that's basically just me not thinking. I started modelling the setup from the floor level then I just dismissed the whole having to model the legs. Nice catch! Frees up a lot of space. I'll also investigate options for a more integrated solution for holding the monitors. Would you perchance know about something you'd recommend?

At work I use some drawer cabinets that does not stop the compartments from being pulled straight out. It seems that these needs to be lifted to get out, so then I'll drop them to the base of the table. (I won't screw anything in place - at least not until I'm 100% happy with the arrangement. It is very tall, the sides are 180 as it's currently modeled (yes, the ceiling here is abnormally high).

Wire reel! Of cource :) thanks.
I'm curious now to see your setup!

I just got a $30-40 clamp-on monitor stand on Amazon. There are generic ones now, they don't cost $100+ anymore like they did when they were being marketed just to businesses.

The problem is not getting the drawer out, the problem is that if you have to take the drawers out, instead of just opening them a bit and looking (because they're above eye level), using the drawers is considerably less pleasant.
My setup:
http://drazzy.com/e/espruino/etc/2015031­3_223243.jpg
(just took a few - so it's a bit of a mess)
http://drazzy.com/e/espruino/etc/2015042­6_231044.jpg
http://drazzy.com/e/espruino/etc/2015042­6_231148.jpg

It's impressive modelling how you want everything - mine just ends up being a total mess :)

I made a thing on Thingiverse today :)

Here it is:

As said in the Thingiverse description, it's a programmer box with

• Olimex msp430-jtag-tiny-v2
  
• ST-Link/V2
  
• AVR ISP mk2
  
  

Everything I need at the moment :)

Things are progressing!

I had a conversation with my girlfriend, and we decided that we would clear out our 'guest room'/store-things-when visitors-arrive-and-call-it-cleaning space. So today I did just that and realize I do have room for more workarea!

It looks cramped (and it is) but the walking space will be a bit more than it was. I threw out a rusty old bed and some junk. Gave away three garbage bags of clothes, and at the end of the day both me and my GF are looking forward to having a proper work/read/game area!

Here it is:

I've sourced the materials and hardware, but not put in an order yet. (I'll have them cut it for me, so I need to go over things once or twice more). I'm looking at a price of about $400 which I recon is totally worth it!
The things mentioned; like fume extractor/blower and optics/magnification are added to my list of things to get, but not modeled.

Thanks for your feedback guys!

You won't like the component drawers up there.....

Edit: Oh, yeah, you said you were getting the desks from a company, and they're build ruggedly - so nevermind most of this...
Are you building the desks yourself?

If so, why not use plywood for the two sides and the back, like I do? That gives you something to anchor a shelf to underneath, and also helps support the middle.

We used 2x2's along the edges of the plywood, each one permanently screwed to one piece of plywood, with holes through it and bolts on the other side - so it can be easily disassembled and reassembled when moving (that lets you make a desk that's too big for the door).

No matter what, you need support under the middle of the desk, assuming that's a sheet of plywood of reasonable thickness. Otherwise it'll bend like a wet noodle when you start putting stuff on it - particularly if you don't have a support along the back (and even if you do). We use 1" steel square (hollow, not solid), 2 pieces, for the 5' span, and two 1.5" ones for the 7' span - and it is rock solid.

What are you using for the surface? Bare plywood is no good - it gets stained like nobody's business. It needs to either be treated, or you use masonite. I recommend masonite, because it's cheap, and as it gets worn, you can first flip it over (if you got double-sided kind), then just replace it. With another easy to cut rectangular piece of masonite!

I won't screw those component drawers tight, and if I decide (when..) that I need to stock up on hardware then I'll get some drawers for that and have them on the floor.

The plan to use off the shelf desk is scrapped (as I give it to my GF) so, I'll build it of Oak.

The table top is 3cm, the feed are 10x10 (I forgot to draw cross bars near the floor, the thing should form a C with me sitting in the opening of it. |_| with the _ close to the wall. Not easy to explain when I don't know any terms for it. Everything is built from either 10x10 or 3x10 pieces of wood.

Doing some kind of bolting (instead of screws) for the legs is probably a good idea. Maybe just screw on a cross section which the legs can then bolt into?

Seen from below:
+-+--------------
| |[ ]<-bolt 
| |
| |[ ] <- bolt
+-+---------------

Wait, with like real wood as the counter, instead of plywood?

That's the current plan at least. Am I being stupid? I will take the bench with me if/when I move. I hope to make something sturdy :)

Doesn't that cost a damned fortune?

My main reason against nice wood (as opposed to plywood and masonite) is based on the fact that workbenches often take some abuse, and end up scratched and nicked and spilled on. I'd feel bad damaging a nice oak table, plus i'd be damaging something expensive instead of something cheap. I flip or replace the masonite every few years.

Which reminds me - you need a vice, no question. Maybe you already have one elsewhere?

Don't skimp on power outlets - you want some below desk level. I mount (sometimes with zipties) power strips and outlets near the front of my tables and desks (almost every table in my room has an outlet mounted on it somehow). On my main desk, I have a couple of these to give pairs ouf outlets: http://www.amazon.com/5-15R-Power-Adapte­r-Splitter-Socket/dp/B00S0O4ADG/ref=sr_1­_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1430287277&sr=8-16&keywo­rds=outlet+splitter+IEC (these are also lovely items to have on hand)

New revision fresh out of the oven (and some flux retouch on the ICs)

I changed the crystal for the CC430 to an oscillator, and I've removed the balun passives for an IC balun/filter (Johanson balun and filter). Fixed a few mistakes (such as not routing RST line to JTAG header....., and making USB footprint from bottom view image i.e mirrored about x axis....) and I hope to get more tests done now :)

The next revision will be 4 layers and much smaller as I'll drop out most of what's only there to aid my testing and developing of the firmware. Also I will not manually pick and place the next version so I can use 0402 parts. Lastly I'll be able to actually follow TIs design guidelines for the RF signal path. Need to read up on co-planar wave guides but it's all fun :)

Most of the gear for my lab has arrived but I've not had time to build the desk yet. When the desk is built I planned on making a few silly unboxing videos. I've peeked a bit and I must say the Thermaltronics soldering station looks very promising :D

Looks great! When you do the next one I'd really strongly recommend you use a through-hole (4 pin) Micro USB connector though. The ones like you have there can come off the board quite easily.

Thanks for the reminder!

For the next version I'll probably change USB to tag-connect and make a ZIF jig for programming the initial bootloaders (which is Espruino for the STM as you know).

I'm having a weird issue with the diode being a smoke-emitting diode. So strange... :( The power section is the same as previous revision, and the same as the power from Espruino. It's D1 from the Espruino schematic that smokes, oh well. Onwards with troubleshooting!

The tag-connect stuff looked interesting. It's a shame that the 'legged' version requires such massive holes in the board though.

Do you have a polyfuse in as well? I think a smokey D1 is probably because your 5v shorted out somewhere. There's hardly anywhere it could be except under a capacitor or something to do with the regulator.

If it was 3.3v that was shorted then the regulator would be getting hotter than the diode :)

Aaaand it's me again!

Guess who has bought a saw and a drill? Me. That's right :)

Home studio / workstation

Apologies for the horrid image... I need a new phone!

My humble start at an electronics bench

I actually filmed my unboxing of all the stuff there... I'll make a silly youtube of it.

Still need:

1. Lighting!
   
2. Install power outlets
   
3. Vise
   
4. Fume extractor
   
5. Magnifying light
   
6. ESD mat + wrist band
   
7. Parts for my parts bins :p
   
   

Allright! On with the projects :)

Wice SmartSensor

BTW. Here's the newest revision of the Wice SmartSensor board. Some Design For Manufacture things done!

Also, I threw this together.

The "Unboxamarathon":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQyly_nn­65w

The bench looks great - what's the wood you used called? It looks nice, and I guess being made out of strips makes it a bit more affordable?

The SmartSensor board it looking great too - so is it looking like it'll go into production with the Espruino firmware on it?

Also, who actually has a fume extractor? Maybe it's me, but I find that just one soldering iron generates so few fumes that I've never felt the need for one. The noise would drive me crazy :)

For parts, I'd really recommend buying this from Seeed - but it looks like it's been discontinued now. Shame, as it was amazing. Does anyone know of something similar?

Wurth electronic do some 'design kits' though. I haven't invested in any (yet) but they look fantastic and come with lifetime refills. Also the Wurth sales team currently get free samples counted towards their sales targets, so they're very happy to send you loads of samples :)

Hi @Gordon! The wood is pine and they market them as "hobby boards". They came as pre cut 235cm lengths of 20, 30 and 40 cm width at 1.8cm depth. Some of the boards were as long as 240 though...

The bench total will be about $400 which I think is totally worth it. It ended up the way I hoped basically :)

The fume extractor is just a precaution for me. I hope to be able to make some youtube videos and then it's worth to have it just to discourage people from yelling about it.

I did have a look at the OPL kit. It would've been perfect as a starting point.
I could pay quite a surcharge to find a 'serious starters kit' of components. Preferrably I'd want one with breadboardable components and one with SMT. I have seen those 'books' with components.
My goal is to cheat away ten years of gathering parts and equipment ;)

I am also considering taking a few hours to simply order what I want (it will be a lot :/ ) from digikey or equivalent and go from there. One other approach would be to order parts for the first couple of project I want to do, and just order more of each part that the project calls for. Only, I want to be able to prototype new ideas when I have them.

I'll have to look out for those boards - they look a million times better than chipboard. About the only similar thing I saw in the UK before was Ikea kitchen worktops :)

I wonder why Seeed stopped the kits - I guess maybe it was just too much effort to package them up. Huge shame though.

I wonder if anyone else does them? In the UK Maplin does some useful kits of through-hole parts: http://www.maplin.co.uk/c/components/res­istors/multi-pack-resistors

edit: for a while I ended up trawling the 'clearance' section of some stores like rapid. There were some epic bargains when RoHS came in, and I got loads of stuff. Probably only used 30% of the bits so far, but just having them on hand has been really useful.

For SMD parts, the reels of components are unbelievably cheap. If someone came up with a machine that would cut off 50 of each component and label the back, they could probably knock up kits really quickly. It's just selling them in enough volume.

I forgot to answer you about whether Espruino will ship, and I must say it looks like it :)
It will be a stripped down compile but it definitely looks as if Espruino will be the backbone for the 'smartness' of the sensor :)

And for the SMD parts into kits idea, maybe we should start a business? ;)