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Electronics Design

Janger

Janger

(John)
Vendor
Premium Member
I see Fusion 360 has a new electronics design and layout capability. Any of you electronics types look at this yet? @Johnwa @JohnW you guys come to mind. It has something called Eagle built in?

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/january-27-2020-product-update-whats-new/
See for youtube and talk...

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I tried for a long time last night trying to program a tapping cycle for a 1/4 20 tpi finally gave up for the night.
 
Maybe this thread should be called Fusion 360? Or do we want a new forum section called Fusion 360? Is there enough interest to warrant that?

Are trying to program your CNC mill for a thread mill tool or rigid tapping?
 
Is this a Fritzing hack John?

I love Fritzing and think it has become industry standard at least for PCB design. Probably because it is free.
 
Eagle has been around for 20 to 30 years as profession pcb design software, I think it was a German company, it was likely the first one that offered a free limited version for home use.
you create a schematic adding parts from some VERY extensive libraries. The schematic information is transferred to the pcb board design window. you then place the components on the board. The connections you made in the schematic are shown as “air wires”. You can then choose to route these manually or use the built in auto router. You can go back and forth between the board and schematic to make changes.
It would create files that you could send off to get your pcb made. In my case I printed out the copper layer on a transparency and created my own boards using photo presensitized boards from places like Radio Shack.
There was a CAM option that allowed you to make boards using a CNC router.
Autodesk bought them a few years ago and it was available as a separate piece of of software.
I‘m in the process of relearning how to use it.
 
I was trying to rigid tap a few holes. The last time I rigid tapped there was no problem and was easy. The hole is .201 for 1/4-20 and it was asking for a offset number. I’ll try again but switch it to a 1/4 hole? Who knows! Lol
 
CalgaryPT said:
Is this a Fritzing hack John?

I love Fritzing and think it has become industry standard at least for PCB design. Probably because it is free.
Click to expand...

Conceptually they are the same but they are worlds apart in terms of capability. That also means their ease of use and learning curves are worlds apart.
 
Johnwa said:
That also means their ease of use and learning curves are worlds apart.
Click to expand...
That's probably why I gravitated towards Fritz. I could easily live out the rest of my life without having to learn yet another complicated application.

Bring back MacDraw. Those were good days. ;)
 
One of the things that brought me into metal working. Many years ago (prior the Internet as we know it.....BBS days) I use to do a lot of hobby electronic stuff for myself. At one point drilling all my self made PCBs was getting too much.

I built a CNC table to drill the holes. This is way before what we have today. I made my own stepper drivers and controllers from scratch. The table used drill rod and teflon sliders. Ready rod and spring loaded nuts. (High tech stuff) It turned out so good I was able to mill PCBs. However etching was still faster with better results. I was able to speed things up by stacking and drilling a few boards at a time.

What I learned back in the day was useful in my transfer over to my CNC mill I built. (converted).


Ok, enough reminiscing.....lol........

I've tried a lot of different software over the years. From high end commercial stuff (at a development shop) down to the hobby level.

I think for hobby use (and possibly into professional stuff) the free program on easyeda.com can not be beat. Easy learning curve. Fast. Acurate

Send your design off to PCBWAY.com 10 boards, for $5.00 (plus shipping) How can you beat that?

The one negative thing about easyeda is that it is a cloud based app. I'm not too happy about my design being out there. :( I use a lot of microcontrollers in my designs. Without the code, the circuit is basically useless.

DSC_1869.JPG

This is a little project that I did recently. Etched, drilled and a mask. It's crazy what we have access to these days.


For the record, I tried Fusion 360 (PCB and CAD) just didn't work for me. I use Solidworks for most of my machining stuff. It also has a PCB designer. Just not as quick and easy as the easyeda designer.
 
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CalgaryPT said:
That's probably why I gravitated towards Fritz. I could easily live out the rest of my life without having to learn yet another complicated application.

Bring back MacDraw. Those were good days. ;)
Click to expand...

MacDraw! Yes and Claris CAD! I loved that one.
 
Eagle has been around for quite some time. I started with Protel which eventually became Altium after the Protel-99SE license keys were hacked and it started showing up all over the world for free. The advantage of Altium and/or now the Eagle bundled with Fusion is that it's possible with both to model the entire PC board complete with the parts. That can then be modeled into the box you design and build. So you can fit the PCB into the box without spending any money.
 
ESP8266

The back side of the board has a battery holder for one 18650 lithium ion battery. That will give you an idea of the size of the total unit. Not much bigger than your finger.

If you look at the top left hand corner of the boards a couple have solder in the drill thru holes, a couple do not. The one with solder have a magnetic reed switch soldered to the back side of the board.

These are used as security devices. When triggered by the magnetic reed switch or what ever else you like to make a contact between the two solder points on the board, the unit will sent a text message and/or email to your cell phone.

I have security cameras, but they are only good after the fact. This fine young man was trying to get into my garage well I was sitting at my kitchen table on the other side of the curtain. It was a sunny morning and I had closed the curtains to eat breakfast.

photo1.jpg

These little bombs are everywhere. Open my gate bing! Accidentaly kick the wrong can in my yard...bing! Open my garage door.... bing! Open a window...bing!

Had I known he was there and trying to get into the garage, I would have helped him. It's kinda sad I missed him.
 
I've got 9 POE CCTV cameras and love them. But you're right about "after the fact." Just before I retired I oversaw a multi-million dollar CCTV camera overhaul for a government building. We talked to a lot of British security consultants (UK has more CCTV per capita than anyone). One thing I learned from them is that CCTV can help you fine tune your physical security based on activity. The software I run on my NVR at home these days can count people, detect gender, eyeglasses, detect abandoned objects, and lots of other stuff I don't yet use. You can draw a line or box around an area and if a person enters it sends an email or text with a pic. Really amazing. The tech has come so far.

I love your boards and think that is a great idea. Hope you are selling them. Really, really good job...kudos to you.

This was last weekend's CCTV excitement on my street. Cops charged 3 kids.

signs2.jpg
 
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Perry
Are these on all the time or do they turn on just long enough to send the message?
I had one as a remote control for my Hue lights. Even though it supposed to go into a deep sleep between button presses it eats up AA batteries pretty quick.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Johnwa,

They are completely off until triggered. (Door opened) Then they latch themselves into an on state and do their work. Last they check to see if the trigger is still present, (was the door closed?) if the trigger is still there they go into a deep sleep and wait for the sleep to end. (I have different timed cycles for different locations) When they wake up, they check to see if trigger is still present or has been removed (door closed). Send an update message and then power off or go back to a deep sleep as required.

I'm using the 18650 battery because most of these are living outside. The li-ion is better in the cold.

When I was testing things out, I ran one for 3 months in a deep sleep cycle, sending an update message every 30 minutes. The update message includes a battery voltage level check. At the three month mark I figured that this would be more than enough. :)

We have a fair number of late night trolls in the summer trying car door handles. This summer I'm thinking one of these sitting in the door pocket with a mercury switch will be enough to trigger it and send a message. I'll just call the police non-emergency number to let them know when the trolls are out.



If you are using an ESP8266 you should be able to get pretty good battery life out of 2X AA. Are you using a voltage regulator? What chip? How many choices (switches) on your remote control?

There are three sleep modes, Modem sleep, Light Sleep, and a Deep Sleep. Deep sleep mode is activated by connecting the RST pin to the GPIO16. See the little wires added in on my boards?
 
So 18:50 last night Saturday evening, I'm down in the lab making some super small precision micro reamers. (I felt like Clickspring himself.) All the lights are off in the house except the lights in my workshop room in the basement. I get a text msg from one of my security units. South side gate opened. Thinking about it I figure I should go investigate. Blah bing . Second text message. north side gate opened. Now I'm heading up stairs and out into the back yard.


The south yard back gate was open and nobody was around. I closed the gate and headed to the north side gate. It was open also. I did not see anyone around.

I went back into the house and started to check the security cameras and seen a person running from the front door of the house.

I called the non emergency number to report the prowler.

I took a drive around the neighborhood to see if I could locate the person with no luck.

After reviewing the cameras I was able to figure out the chain of events.

The person entered into my yard on the south side between the houses.
He would have seen the light on thru the SW corner basement window, but would not be able to see into the basement.

He entered the back yard thru the south side gate between the houses. Crouched down behind the BBQ and looked in another basement window on the SE corner. (He spent approx 20 seconds looking into the window). He would not have been able to see me working in my workshop, but the light I had on would have given him enough light to see the basement area and I'm sure he figured nobody was home.

He then proceeded around the house thru the back yard to the north gate. Opened the gate and headed towards the front door. On this second alert, I headed up stairs and into the backyard to see what was going on. I didn't find anything and headed back into the house.

From the video time stamps, it appears while I was in the backyard he was at my front door. He was at the front door for over a minute. He had taken his back pack off and had it in his hand. There is one small mark on the door frame that looks like he was about to pry the outside storm door. I'm sure when I came into the house I must have startled him and he fled.

The interesting part is the front video shows my flashlight as I am searching around the south side of the house. Then I go around the back and search the north side. Flashlight again. Both times I was within 10 feet of him. He did not see me and I did not see him. So close.

Sooner or later I will catch one of these guys. The question is...if I catch one can I keep him?


This got me thinking about my garage walk in door. It has a lock on the handle and a dead bolt. The weakest link is the door frame where the dead bolt goes in. what have you guys done on your door frame? Tips? Photos? Suggestions?
 
You can’t keep him but he’s yours till the police get there! I’ve always wondered about a pressure pad in front of the door wired to a horn or something to fire a nail gun blank. :):)
 
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