Blog 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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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...
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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...
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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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...
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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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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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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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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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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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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...
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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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 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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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 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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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...
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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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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...
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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