Must-haves for EASY DIY controller?

[5ft24]

I just cruized the batchpcb site. Once you submit your gerbers, you can put whatever quantity in your cart. You also have 2 other options: list your board for sale ( not what we want). Or:
Share your design.
The latter allows others to get copies of your boards without having to upload the gerbers all over again, and doesn't need the W9 like the list your board for sale.

 

[TheShadow]

will this ATMEGA328 work from sparkfun.com
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9217

 

[nauticac4]

Yes

 

[ingoh]

That hardware is like half a Hydra - very interesting indeed. I don't know of anyone from Germany building a Hydra, but we did put a lot of effort into keeping parts selection as standard and basic as possible (with a few unfortunate exceptions) so you should be able to find replacements through typical outlets - I don't know if Mouser or digi-key have branches in Germany? Or what about farnell?

OK, just ordered some HR911105A from HK and 2 ENC28J60-I/SP and some other parts not available at Mouser in Germany. Talked to the guys from our electronic workshop yesterday: they can manufacture the PCB...

Now I have to buy an FTDI adapter (using an ISP adapter now) and perhaps a simple arduino board (UNO or 2009) for testing.

The arduino IDE is running fine with linux.

I think you have got a new follower of hydra now :fish1:

greetings
Ingo

 

[nauticac4]

The response from iTead

Hi,

We are willing to add some open source board into our store, but maybe we need to get the assent of the designer. Thanks for your mail, we will evaluate this project and give you the reply soon.

Regards
ITead

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

OK, just ordered some HR911105A from HK and 2 ENC28J60-I/SP and some other parts not available at Mouser in Germany. Talked to the guys from our electronic workshop yesterday: they can manufacture the PCB...

Now I have to buy an FTDI adapter (using an ISP adapter now) and perhaps a simple arduino board (UNO or 2009) for testing.

The arduino IDE is running fine with linux.

I think you have got a new follower of hydra now :fish1:

greetings
Ingo

If you buy an Uno or 2009, don't bother with a separate FTDI adapter. You can rig the Uno or 2009 to target the chip(s) on the Hydra and essentially use them as a bridge between the Hydra and the PC instead of getting an FTDI adapter.

The response from iTead

Hi,

We are willing to add some open source board into our store, but maybe we need to get the assent of the designer. Thanks for your mail, we will evaluate this project and give you the reply soon.

Regards
ITead

I'm not 100% we're at a point where I would want to proceed with that quite yet. At least, not unless they start stocking our specific magjack. If they won't, then I think we should redesign to use a more commonly available magjack first.

Also, I kind of feel like we need to get our ducks in a row from a documentation and firmware perspective before we start "spreading the word" in terms of putting the PCB up somewhere or talking about the project on other forums.

Unless someone strongly disagrees, that's my perspective. DustinB and terahz, if either of you are around and would like to comment, please do.

 

[DustinB]

I'm with you on that. I think it is good to look at options and IMO this would be a good thing if someone could get a board or 2 and a magjack from the same place. That being said, I think we can all agree this project is still far from a finished state and very much a prototype project. There is still a lot of programming and testing to be done and that is likely going to be a little while until I start getting some free time again, I've been so busy I'm not even using my hydra for anything more than PWM control for my LEDs.

Personally, I wouldn't be too opposed to getting a magjack design that is available at mouser/digikey. I don't have enough knowledge in that aspect to know what a standard might be, let alone how long that "standard" might stick around before it gets discontinued.

 

[terahz]

This project is definitely not ready for prime time. Yes, the hardware might have some final form, but the software is far from ready, and that might force some hardware changes.

Please don't think that because we have a few boards running, they can be sent in to "mass production".

Actually, who is using a Hydra at the moment and how much of it are you using? Lets do a quick check to see how many people have actually managed to put one together and use it without documentation.

In my mind the current state of the project is:

Hardware: release candidate stage. Depends on software

Firmware (main): 60% ready - needs cleanup, GUI, scheduler and implemented menu system.
Firmware (slave): 30%-80% - depending on what will go on this chip it can be almost ready or just starting to program. If we leave it as network + general IO, then I'd say it is 80%.
Web: 75% - this is fairly subjective. I'd like only a few more modifications, other than that I'm happy with what it is.

Hardware documentation - 0%
Firmware documentation - 0%
Web documentatino - 0%
User guide - 0%

I'd say we are a good 6 months from being ready but that's just me.

Don't forget, the first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time and the last 10% takes another 90% of the time...

 

[ingoh]

If you buy an Uno or 2009, don't bother with a separate FTDI adapter. You can rig the Uno or 2009 to target the chip(s) on the Hydra and essentially use them as a bridge between the Hydra and the PC instead of getting an FTDI adapter.

I think using another board instead of the adapter for programming will become too laborious. I plan to do active firmware development on the Hydra...

FYI: I studied electronics (long time ago ;-) ), worked as a software engineer for some years and now as a system manager at a university. Though my experience with ATMEGAs is not too big so far I'm interested to increase it...

regards

PS: If someone has 2 or 3 of the actual PCBs left or is going to order please send PN.

 

[vitreous]

terahz,

First 90% takes 10% of the time I think you mean, last 10% takes 90%

thats the way it works at my job anyway

vit

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

You guys actually finish projects? Must not be paid by the hour. :lol:

At any rate, I agree with terahz's summary regarding our current progress. As far as listing the board for sale with one of the open source pools, I'm happy to do that when the timing is appropriate, and I will post an update when the board is available. Until then, people are best off going through one of the currently used channels.

 

[5ft24]

You guys actually finish projects? Must not be paid by the hour. :lol:

At any rate, I agree with terahz's summary regarding our current progress. As far as listing the board for sale with one of the open source pools, I'm happy to do that when the timing is appropriate, and I will post an update when the board is available. Until then, people are best off going through one of the currently used channels.

on a similar note, I uploaded the gerbers to batchPCB.com. since they seem to have a much shorter turn around than itead and seeedstudio.
They failed the DRC check. Their minimum trace width is 10 mils, and minimum spacing is 10 mils.
I'm attaching the images and logs of the errors...

 

[5ft24]

Anyone got a pointer/helpsite/info on how to properly run the cam processor in Eagle to ouput the individual gerber files?
Thanks

 

[5ft24]

Figgered it out...
DustinB, The bottom layer of the Hydra has an issue where one of the segments of the groundplane has a small break in it, and because that break is less than 10mil, it fails DRC...
It's the red/purplish area in the bottom image I uploaded, about 2 O'clock and about half way to the center of the board.
Thanks

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Will their DRC bot let you submit it anyways? Tolerances from a signal to itself won't present a problem (at least in this case). Worst case, play with the parameters for that ground plane until those little spots go away.

 

[5ft24]

Will their DRC bot let you submit it anyways? Tolerances from a signal to itself won't present a problem (at least in this case). Worst case, play with the parameters for that ground plane until those little spots go away.

It lets you submit, but fails DRC... Played with the Polygon params a bit and the section in question appears good now, just re-submitted to see what happens

 

[5ft24]

forget batchpcb... they want 38 dollars and change EACH for the hydra boards...
plus a 10.00 set up fee...
went to itead studio at 38.00 for 10 boards!

 

[NelsonPJ]

Woo hoo!

Woo hoo!

I finished assembling my Hydra, and the test sketch works! I ordered a batch of 10 PCBs from iTead just before Christmas and got the boards in the mail last weekend, so that didn't take too long. I only want to keep a couple as spares, so PM me if you're interested in the other PCBs.

One thing I noticed: my boards have the transistor silk screen and the dotted lines on the underside of the board. I saw a few pages back that this was supposed to have been fixed (not that it's a big deal) but the new files apparently haven't been uploaded to the Google Code website (or at least the ZIP file wasn't updated). The hydra_gerbers.zip file that I used was dated 18 Nov 2010, and is on the Google website today. I assume this is how everybody's boards are turning out lately?

What's the best way to proceed from here? With the sample sketch, I've only uploaded to the "main" AVR, and haven't tested the "slave". I downloaded TeraHz's sketches from a few pages back and compiled them, but haven't uploaded them to my controller yet. I'm not sure if I can run his sketches - it looks like he's using an IR keypad - what are other people using as an interface? Anybody else have sample sketches?

 

[5ft24]

Hey Guys,
Took the pcb and sch files for the hydra relay board off the website and generated the gerbers from it.
I've submitted it to iteadstudio and should have some in the next couple weeks...
Should I attach the gerber .zip here to be put in the google source site or?
Thanks

 

[goldenfamaliy]

ok, that looks cool!