Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Wed, 22 Jan 2014
When I discovered that the altitude sensor on my Air Data Instrument was discontinued, I leapt! into action! Well, at least, I opened up the Eagle files for the circuit board, to see how hard it would be to make a new board that would fit the replacement sensor.
Turns out it wasn't much work, so I put together the Dangerpants Labs Air Data Instrument v1.3 board, which includes the correct layout for the new version of the sensor (the BMP180).
Before I had realized that the part changed, I had ordered a set of v1.2 boards (which are still available if you have a spare BMP085 you just gotta use). I was curious to see what OSH Park's quality and service were like. I've also ordered a set of v1.3 boards and some BMP180 sensors to play with.
At this point, I've just been notified that my first order of v1.2 boards has been received back from the fab, about a week and a half after placing the order. OSH Park has a relatively verbose notification system that sends an email when the order is received, when payment is received, when the design has been added to a fab order (little boards like mine are compiled together into one big board, which is what the factory wants to make, then cut up into individual pieces), when it's been sent off to the factory, and when it's been received back from the factory. Presumably there will be another email when it's shipped out.
I quite appreciate this level of detail. It's nice to know how things are going. So I'll say that the ordering and shipping process is pretty cool so far. I'll have feedback on the boards once I get them.
The OSH Park website, unfortunately, leaves a lot to be desired. There is no way to search shared projects, you just have to page through the list until you find what you want. Although there are user pages which list shared projects per user (such as my Dangerpants Labs page), you just have to know what the URL is -- there's no way to search for a user, or even a list of users to page through. The interface for people uploading designs isn't a lot better, with some controls in one place, and some controls in another place, and no explanation of where anything is. Their support system is pretty good, and I got a reply to a question within 24 hours. However, I had to log in again, and their FAQ list is squarely aimed at technical questions around making boards (which is good), with no mention of site navigation or how to perform different actions (which is bad, when the site design is comparatively unintuitive like this).
I'm sure OSH Park is aware of these things, and they have them on a list of things to fix. Regardless, they're worth knowing for the general nerdly public who may want to use the service.
It's worth mentioning here that the problem I had was that I wanted to edit a project, which is not possible from the "Projects" link at the top of the page. There's a list of projects, but you can't edit any of them from there, just order, delete or share/unshare. Only when you find the shared project page (which you can only do if you share the project, a fairly major flaw if you're trying to order prototypes of a project that shouldn't be public yet) do you get an Edit button. Fortunately the upload process is pretty straightforward, so re-uploading a project has the same effect as editing it. Not a great workaround if your Gerber files (used to define a printed circuit board) are at home, and you're not, though.
The takeaway from this all should be that OSH Park seems to be offering a good service. They're cheaper than BatchPCB was by half, and their boards go to a US fabrication plant: turnaround is much faster and you can get all wiggly about not sending money/work offshore if that's your thing (as it is mine). It's a pity the website is a bit wonky, but as long as you end-run around their wonkiness by using direct linking (as I did above and on the ADI page), it's pretty easy. I'll report back on the board quality once I get my boards in, probably in the next week or two.
Update! As I was typing this up, the shipping notification arrived from OSH Park. They say I'll have my new boards within two days. So... awesome!
Posted at 12:44 permanent link category: /gadgets
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater