Showing off the 'redditoken'
A month ago I've written about the 'redditoken', a Reddit themed circuit board. The tokens are back from OSH Park, and here's a short video about themWhat do you think?
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New board: 'wuthering'
The omnipresent Andrew Back has asked me to design a small board / badge for the upcoming Wuthering Bytes Workshop in Hebden Bridge. We decided on a simple circuit -- something based on littlewire...
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A new teaching board for The Centre of Computing History in Cambridge
The Centre for Computing History has moved to Cambridge, and has been officially open for a couple of months. Jason Fitzpatrick -- the man who has made all this happen -- and his team of volunteers...
View ArticleEngineers, assemble!
The EDA industry is hostile to innovation. I thought that that was a pretty strong statement until I uttered it in a talk and an industry veteran remarked that that was actually an...
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The 'lifegame'
My friend Mike is getting married on Saturday (tomorrow). Both him and his soon-to-be-wife enjoy video games -- as do I! -- and I thought that a game-themed gift would be nice. Since I'm all into this...
View ArticleJust applied for YCombinator
I suppose that it isn't that ordinary to publicise this sort of thing, but I just hit the button for the Winter 2014 YCombinator application. I'm not that hopeful, though -- I think that my application...
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The origins of PCBmodE
I've been obsessively doodling all my life. I've got notebooks and pieces of paper full of abstract drawings of meaningless stuff, from my teenage years until today. Any time there's a piece of paper...
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An update
Lots has been happening on the Boldport front. There's 'cuttlefish', an educational board made for Embecosm; 'deadwood', a tribute to the cordwood PCB assembly from the 1960s, which will be sold by...
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An engineer's emergency kit business card
Circuit board business cards have been done. But since circuit boards are, literally, my business, I felt that I needed one too. Of course it also had to be special. Research and experimentation took a...
View ArticleIn defence of the "sloppy" engineer
When things go wrong it's tempting to blame the "sloppy, incompetent" engineer. Security breach? Bad board? Cumbersome UI? Ah, it's that stupid engineer again! Not the overbearing boss, lack of...
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I'm an engineer!
Teenagers used to have posters of Einstein on their walls. Decades pass and now they have Miley Cyrus adorning their rooms. What's next, a cat playing the piano? Scientists and engineers' contribution...
View ArticleSo you want to start an EDA business?
It's New Year's day. We look ahead. Some of you may be thinking today of starting an EDA business. I've been an EDA user all of my professional life and have tried and failed in starting an EDA...
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oomlaut wins 'superhero' board for £105!
I ran an informal auction for one of two 'superhero' boards over on Twitter. After a lot of fun and puns, oomlaut had the top bid of £105! All the funds from this auction will go towards PCBmodE...
View ArticleI won't be using an open source hardware logo on my boards any longer
I'm very enthusiastic about open source hardware. I've written PCBmodE, which is open source software, and unless a client does not want it to be, the boards I design with it are open source hardware...
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Laser cutter fun
In a couple of weeks it will have been a year since I blogged about 'pieceof'coming back from fab. It was the first board I made with PCBmodE and it's still one of my favourites. To celebrate this, I'd...
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The tiny engineer superhero emergency kit
I'm not very good at predicting what's going to appeal to a wide audience, so I experiment. A few months ago I blogged about the 'engineer's emergency kit business card'That post got about 70,000...
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So you want to manufacture your printed circuit board?
A Boldport board manufactured by Cambridge Circuits"Where should I send my board to?" comes up quite regularly in conversation. I'm actually not the best person to ask. The reason is that when I have...
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A tribute to the cordwood construction of old
Back when electronic components were large and circuit board technology was in its infancy, clever engineers used the 'cordwood' construction to save space. We rarely need that sort of assembly method...
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Making beautiful solder points
Rows of shiny domes on the 'cuttlefish' boardI'd like my boards to look and feel the best as they can, particularly for photos. I invest a lot of effort and attention in the detail and look of my...
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Three awesome colours to say that you're damn good at what you do!
BAM! There will be no mistake that you're a fucking good engineer and you know it!This plaque comes in three different custom, unique, colours: red-orange, light-blue, and green-yellow. These are meant...
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Reflow with a hair straightener
I love using things for what they were not intended for. Often it doesn’t quite work out, but I had a good feeling about this next one. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and saw my...
View ArticleApple acquires Boldport!
Press releases go out tomorrow, but I've been permitted to write about the news today for the loyal readers of this blog: Apple acquired Boldport! We've been negotiating since January and have finally...
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Cleanly de-soldering a pin header
Know that sinking feeling right after realising that you've soldered that 40-pin header on the wrong side of the board? I know it too well. When that happens you either need to chuck out the board or...
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Beautiful resistance
By now, when I look at components I evaluate their aesthetics as much as I do their functionality. When I design boards, the look and feel of the component has to fit the design, not only what it's...
View ArticleBlog has moved!
Hello everyone!With the new Boldport website design this blog has moved to: http://boldport.com/blogand the shop to http://boldport.com/shopPlease update RSS feeds, links, etc.
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