COMPLETED - Arduino Development Boards

[granz]

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Well, checking out sites with 3D print files, there are a whole lot of these available. I've been perusing Thingaverse, and have looked at over 1000 breadboard-related prints. The vast majority of them have been variations on these SunFounder (and other) trays (although a couple of them are related to slicing bread .) I haven't seen anything that particularly grabbed my attention, however several did come close.

So, I'm going to fork my project here. The new fork will be for my dream dev board, and it is going to be documented/discussed here: https://savagechats.com/index.php?topic=448.0

For continuing this thread, I will just put together two simple dev boards with the material that I already have. Then we can hand those boards out at the meetup.

[granz]

Well, here they are:

You can see that I put the two shields (mentioned in my first post in this thread) on the Arduinos. They look nice, and should make some nice additions for the people who "win" the boards.

The blank space at the top of the boards will contain a small case:

These boxes are from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXXYS2P7,) and will just fit on the board above the power pack. They will hold a few components, and some jumper wires.

These look like they will be nice give-aways for the meetup.

[granz]

I received ONE of these cases - somehow I got it into my head that they were in sets of three. That makes them three times as expensive as I thought. Oh well, $6 isn't all that bad; so another case is on order right now.

As you can see, they fit perfectly (although they do hang off the top edge of the board by about ¹/₁₆th of an inch - if I were to do this again I would move the other stuff down a tiny bit.)


I think that they look pretty good (other than the garbage on my lens.  )

I'll add a few jumper wires, some LEDs with resistors and maybe a few other components to the box. Hopefully, that will get some beginner started in a new hobby, and maybe even a new career.

I think that this can be marked as completed.

[Chris Savage]

I really need to remember to re-read this thread after I'm home. I read it here and it's marked read. Then I get home and forget. At work I cannot see the photos.

[granz]

Reminder text message scheduled for 7:00PM. It will automatically go out then.

[Chris Savage]

Reminder text message scheduled for 7:00PM. It will automatically go out then.

I got it. And though I was eating at the time, I did go upstairs after and look at this thread. I was able to see your photos from home. Apparently, Spectrum doesn't consider your site to be a threat. LOL 

[granz]

Reminder text message scheduled for 7:00PM. It will automatically go out then.

I got it. And though I was eating at the time, I did go upstairs after and look at this thread. I was able to see your photos from home. Apparently, Spectrum doesn't consider your site to be a threat. LOL 

I actually ran check programs (from several different sites) against my site - all showed that my site, itself, was clean. Only eight, out of ninety-seven, test sites showed that my email was marked as phishing. I checked through most of my email accounts (there are a couple of addresses that I did not check because they were given to friends.) But there is no sign of any phishing from any of my addresses.

I'm not sure what to do from here. 

[granz]

...I was able to see your photos from home. Apparently, Spectrum doesn't consider your site to be a threat.

So, what do you think?

Actually, I'm thinking of putting them up for sale (maybe $30-$60) but offer them to some people as freebies. Maybe some people will believe that the things are worth that much (you always treat things better when they seem expensive,) or maybe I'll get a few bucks out of them.

[Chris Savage]

So, what do you think?

Well, I think you should do what works for you. I think you've got something there. But only trying it out publicly will let you know how much interest there is. I don't do that as much these days. The lack of forum participation (on three forums) has made me wonder where the hobbyists have all gone (as we discussed in another thread).

I learned something as an engineer; it was completely proven when I worked at Parallax. If you give an engineer a task, you generally end up with a decent product. Give three engineers the same task, and you get three completely different products.

So, while it would be something I could see people buying, I originally built mine differently. Of course, after interest dropped, I decided to keep my two prototypes and use them myself. Those blue boards with the breadboard, Arduino and a dual power supply were something I was trying to use to get some locals interested in electronics. As for power I have several wall adapters I got for around $3.00 / each from Amazon and my power supplies also came with an adapter to use a 9V battery.

Finally, everyone I know these days has a battery bank for charging their phone (since some people can't put them down...EVER), and so you can optionally power it from that. I have two battery banks; one for my phone / tablet, which also supports wireless charging and another one I use strictly for mobile power.

Of course, the meet up is the first time I will be mobilizing things since I settled back down, and I sure didn't prepare for that. But we'll see what happens. 

[granz]

Well, I think you should do what works for you. I think you've got something there. But only trying it out publicly will let you know how much interest there is.

Oh, I don't really intend to sell them. Just that if I get some money from one, or both, I'm not going to complain.

I learned something as an engineer; it was completely proven when I worked at Parallax. If you give an engineer a task, you generally end up with a decent product. Give three engineers the same task, and you get three completely different products.

At least... We saw that in watching the design of the Propeller 2.

Of course, the meet up is the first time I will be mobilizing things since I settled back down, and I sure didn't prepare for that. But we'll see what happens. 

Yep, I'm really looking forward to it.

[Chris Savage]

At least... We saw that in watching the design of the Propeller 2.

Feature creep is the bane of the design process. And when you've got a whole forum of people asking for features, well...when a design takes so long (years) and costs so much money to realize, you have to make cuts elsewhere. I was one of those cuts.

[JKnightandKARR]

Looks good Granz, and Chris, that's SAD.....

[Chris Savage]

Looks good Granz, and Chris, that's SAD.....

To be fair, I wasn't the only one. But I was one of those people that used to be told how much of an integral part of the company I was; how invaluable I was. But, I guess if you're going to shoot yourself in the foot, you need to amputate the limb.

My feature-creep stage was in 1988-1993 when I was writing programs on the Commodore 64. Sadly, when you're consistently hitting the limitations of the hardware with the features, you're overthinking it. I am much more concise in my approach these days, which is why, despite numerous "objects" on the Propeller to do much of what I wanted to do, I tended to write my own to K.I.S.S. as well as eliminate unnecessary delays often written into drivers.

[JKnightandKARR]

Looks good Granz, and Chris, that's SAD.....

To be fair, I wasn't the only one. But I was one of those people that used to be told how much of an integral part of the company I was; how invaluable I was. But, I guess if you're going to shoot yourself in the foot, you need to amputate the limb.

My feature-creep stage was in 1988-1993 when I was writing programs on the Commodore 64. Sadly, when you're consistently hitting the limitations of the hardware with the features, you're overthinking it. I am much more concise in my approach these days, which is why, despite numerous "objects" on the Propeller to do much of what I wanted to do, I tended to write my own to K.I.S.S. as well as eliminate unnecessary delays often written into drivers.

Oh I bet, that's why I want to get better at electronics n be my own "Electronics Engineer" even though it would be unofficial, just a "In My World" thing.

[granz]

I received ONE of these cases - somehow I got it into my head that they were in sets of three. That makes them three times as expensive as I thought. Oh well, $6 isn't all that bad; so another case is on order right now.

Well, I received the other case, so both kits are now done, and their components are loaded into the boxes:

The components are:

• 4 Each of M-M, M-F and F-F jumper wires
• 2 Each of red, yellow and green LEDS
• 6 360 ohm resistors for LEDs
• 1 Breadboard speaker
• 3 Each pushbutton switches

The components fit nicely.