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Rallylog is an open hardware project that is used in Rally time trial competitions.
Project Home : http://code.google.com/p/rallylog/
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It has certainly been a while between posts, but I thought I write a few things about my conversion to Kicad as my EDA of choice.
Most All of my projects in the past I’ve use Eagle PCB, as it certainly has been the EDA of choice in the open hardware community. However it was the only non-open piece in my open hardware arsenal, until now…..enter Kicad.
I’ve been keeping an eye on Kicad for the past couple of years and I’ve never really had time to try it out on a project until now.
My Father is a member of a recreational collectors motor bike club and they have a number of timed competition rallies throughout the year that may go over the weekend and consist of many checkpoints across a course that are located throughout the district.
In the past they did everything manually i.e. write down their time and details at each checkpoint, so at the end of the rally, times are tallied and winners announced etc. Since it is manual it doesn’t scale very well, at their annual run where a few hundred competitors took part it didn’t scale well at all. Knowing the geek that I am, my father asked me if I could do anything to make things simpler. The club had investigated some commercial rally systems, but was pretty expensive. I volunteered to automate things a bit…..
Enter RallyLog! An Open Hardware project that will use RFID tags to log competitor times at checkpoints.
So I now had the reason to learn Kicad for a totally Open Project.
Kicad was originally written by Jean-Pierre Charras (more background on Kicad can be found here – http://www.lis.inpg.fr/realise_au_lis/kicad/)
It is actively being developed by a large number of volunteers at http://launchpad.net/kicad and runs on a number of platforms:
Kicad is made up of a number of different applications that run under the Kicad project manager they are:
Coming from Eagle I had to unlearn how I did things within Eagle and move to the Kicad way, this means a lot of right-clicking to do things, many things were not the same as what I was used to in Eagle, but I quickly picked things up within a day of using Kicad and now find most things fairly intuitive.
If I had a problem I found the developers and the users to be very helpful answering questions on the mailing list.
Yes this is a big thing, especially those who have build up their own footprint libraries over time, however all is not lost! a ULP Eagle Library conversion script has been written that is run from within the Eagle Library. This converts the library to the Kicad library format of which the Components and PCB prints are separated out into two files. One is a library *.lib file for eeschema that contains the schematic representation of the components, the other is in a *.mod format for module footprints used within pcbnew.
In Eagle a library contains the:
Kicad component library has been separated into the Schematic and the PCB side of thins, one library for each. Now That I’ve been using things for a bit over a month I can see that it makes a lot of sense. When I’m creating a schematic all I want to worry about is capturing the circuit, if I need a new component I create a new component in the library, not having to worry about the footprint at this point in time. In eagle it is similar, i.e. you can create only the symbol and package without the device, but I found it long winded.
Another added bonus with the components is you can link data sheets to the individual components. Brilliant!
I successfully imported a my libraries across, I did have to manually replace the reference some components as it defaulted to U?
One thing I haven’t played around with yet is the 3D viewer.
20/03/09 *UPDATE * This project now has a new home and is actively being developed on Google code project hosting http://code.google.com/p/strobit/
IMPORTANT This page is no longer being being maintained please go to the new project page.
Welcome to the Strobit Triggr Project, an open source hackable wireless trigger used in photography lighting by using low cost strobe units triggered remotely via RF. This was started while trying to find a cost effective and reliable solution to the commercial alternatives out there. At one end of the market is the Ebay or Cactus Trigger, which is low cost but rather unreliable. At the other end of the market there is the industry standard, Pocket Wizards, very reliable, but very expensive (i.e. way out of my price range).
What I wanted to do was to create an open platform that anyone can easily build for a low cost and then be expand upon by the community. The pair of prototypes I’ve built were a proof of concept that I can get a camera to trigger a strobe unit reliably at a low cost. From early tests it appears that I’ve succeeded in my goal, but further testing is required.
- Prototype successfully working in single master/slave configuration !
- (20/03/2009) Project now has a home at Google Code – http://code.google.com/p/strobit/
Still Todo:
The strobit hardware design is covered by The TAPR Open Hardware License. Please see http://www.tapr.org/ohl.html for further details.
Downloads – Files associated with the project
Tests – Tests done so Far
In the Wild – Version of this trigger made by others
I’m toying with the idea of putting together a low cost kit for the enthusiast. i.e. PCB, pre-programmed PIC, etc. So we could all benefit with a bulk order of the components. If your interested please email me using the contact form the top menu or use the mailing list signup on the right to give me an indication of numbers interested. Once I finaliaze the design and get some idea of numbers I’ll get a better idea of price. At the moment it will only be available in kit form due to FCC and other Licensing regulations.
