LunAero This week, the University of Oklahoma Aeroecology Biologging group started a crowdfunding campaign for LunAero: an automated lunar bird tracking device. Since this is one of the projects I’m spearheading as part of my postdoctoral position in the lab of Dr. Eli Bridge, I’d like to walk through the current design here. Take a …
As part of my ongoing development of the TB6612FNG motor control board, I have created a laser cut Kapton soldermask stencil. In this post, I will first discuss the method of producing a stencil vector drawing from KiCAD. Next, I will discuss the issues that come up with improper settings when cutting Kapton. Finally, I …
I was recently inspired to design a 3D printed SMD strip dispenser for small rolls. I designed the part to be compatible with a little roll I found on Thingiverse and fell in love with. The little roll is called the Mx SMD Component Strip Holder. I decided the cute little Mx needed a better …
It’s a snow day here, and I’ve been busy on a project. So this week is a quick, simple post about sugar and metal. If you ever study metal contents in sugary solutions (in this case, a juice mimic), you should not evaporate your contents. In our lab, we never processed our waste. However, we …
A few weeks ago, I posted about a circuit board I designed to use the TB6612FNG motor controller, seen here, and went through the steps of producing the board for prototyping in subsequent posts. Now that I have had enough time to work with the prototype board, I have made some changes to the design …
Lately, I’ve been editing papers with comments from people who only use Adobe on their Windows or Mac. But for us nerds who use Linux, PDF annotations become an annoyance. Sure, we could download the closed-source poorly implemented security nightmare that is Adobe Reader for Linux, but there has to be a better way. While …
In last week’s post, I discussed a method for DIY PCB etching. This week, I will be continuing in that manner by showing you the final preparation steps I used to get this board ready for soldering including cutting, drilling holes, and protecting the copper with liquid tin. Cutting and Drilling Once the boards were …
Reasoning Today, I will be showing you the DIY PCB etching workflow used in the lab where I am working. In the post last week, I discussed the design considerations for a TB6621FNG motor control board. This post will document how the physical PCB was created. Previously, when I have wanted to produce a PCB, …
Background As part of a to-be-announced project I am working on, I ended up designing a new Toshiba TB6621FNG motor control board which is designed to be compatible with the Raspberry Pi. Before I began this design, the lab I am working in had been using controllers based on the Rohm BD6222HFP chip. This is …
Dissertation Publication Since my dissertation was recently published (see last weeks post), I thought I would post the template I used to create it. Oklahoma State University does not currently offer a default LaTeX template for a dissertation. Instead, they only offer a Word template (gross!). I took it upon myself to make an Okstate …