Dog House for BeagleBoard xM - Sneak Peek
06/30/2010 12:38 Filed in: Mechanical Engineering | C.A.D.
[Update: 8/24/10 - The new Dog House for Beagle Board xM case is now available from ESawdust.com]
Synopsis: This is a sneak peek at the new Dog House for BeagleBoard xM board introduced in June, 2010. We’ve been on a roll lately - just last week we introduced Crib for Arduino Case - a metal case for your Arduino projects and also an Ethernet Shield faceplate for Arduinos. This week, we have the pleasure of showing you an advanced look at the case (enclosure) we designed for the BeagleBoard xM.
In our enclosure design process we always go through one or more complete manufacturing prototype runs. This lets us see the true product, work out any manufacturing problems and special processes, get the physical enclosure in our hands, size it up and see how it feels - all things that are impossible to accomplish from a C.A.D. design.
What follows is a sneak peek at the first Dog House for BeagleBaord xM. We expect in 3-4 weeks we’ll have production quantities ready for sale. Watch ESawdust.com for news about the Dog House for BeagleBoard xM.
This is a 3-piece design similar to the Dog House for Beagle Board. In order to wrap a board with connectors on 3 sides, there’s almost no other way to do it than a 3-piece. So, that element carried through in this Dog House.
One thing that is different is we went with a threaded built-in standoff instead of a compression standoff. We like both types, but decided to try out the thread built-in on this enclosure and see how it goes and what customers think of it.
Of course the beauty of having built-in standoffs for a product like this is that A) you don’t have to drill holes, B) you don’t have to fuss with extra hardware (faster to assemble a lot of these) and C) you get perfect alignment of the board with the faces of the two-part lid.
Like the original Dog House for BeagleBoard, you can see that this is complicated enclosure to design and get to fit well. We’ve worked hard on the fit so you get functional, durable, professional cases for your BeagleBoard products.
Landon Cox
www.ESawdust.com
Synopsis: This is a sneak peek at the new Dog House for BeagleBoard xM board introduced in June, 2010. We’ve been on a roll lately - just last week we introduced Crib for Arduino Case - a metal case for your Arduino projects and also an Ethernet Shield faceplate for Arduinos. This week, we have the pleasure of showing you an advanced look at the case (enclosure) we designed for the BeagleBoard xM.
In our enclosure design process we always go through one or more complete manufacturing prototype runs. This lets us see the true product, work out any manufacturing problems and special processes, get the physical enclosure in our hands, size it up and see how it feels - all things that are impossible to accomplish from a C.A.D. design.
What follows is a sneak peek at the first Dog House for BeagleBaord xM. We expect in 3-4 weeks we’ll have production quantities ready for sale. Watch ESawdust.com for news about the Dog House for BeagleBoard xM.
This is a 3-piece design similar to the Dog House for Beagle Board. In order to wrap a board with connectors on 3 sides, there’s almost no other way to do it than a 3-piece. So, that element carried through in this Dog House.
One thing that is different is we went with a threaded built-in standoff instead of a compression standoff. We like both types, but decided to try out the thread built-in on this enclosure and see how it goes and what customers think of it.
Of course the beauty of having built-in standoffs for a product like this is that A) you don’t have to drill holes, B) you don’t have to fuss with extra hardware (faster to assemble a lot of these) and C) you get perfect alignment of the board with the faces of the two-part lid.
Like the original Dog House for BeagleBoard, you can see that this is complicated enclosure to design and get to fit well. We’ve worked hard on the fit so you get functional, durable, professional cases for your BeagleBoard products.
Landon Cox
www.ESawdust.com
Designing a Mini2440 Faceplate for Chameleon 1
11/09/2009 08:23 Filed in: C.A.D. | Mechanical Engineering
Synopsis: ESawdust has had several requests to create a Chameleon 1 faceplate for the FriendlyARM Mini2440 ARM9 development board that’s suitable for running embedded Linux, Windows CE and other embedded OS’s. This article describes the processes we go through to layout a faceplate and create cutouts for shapes we need to allow connectors to protrude through the face. By the end of the article you’ll see a completed prototype faceplate for the Mini2440 and how we got there.
The article is broken down into sections including measurement, layout, prototyping and finally, there’s a video tutorial on how to create a complex cutout shape, a DB9 cutout, using a consumer grade C.A.D. package, ViaCAD (Windows and Mac versions.)
ESawdust follower, @BusError (Michel), maintainer of the embedded Linux distro for the Mini2440, put me in touch with Charlie Springer of Industrial ARMWorks who was kind enough to supply us with a Mini2440 and FriendlyARM displays to start sizing up.
The Mini2440
In case you’re not familiar with the board, this is a top-down shot of the Mini2440. I put a physical ruler nearby so I could calibrate photos. I have a virtual caliper in the image also which is showing the board to be around 3.94” square.
Measuring
The first order of business is to determine the orientation of the board and identify the side that makes the most sense to expose via the faceplate. In the case of the Mini2440, the side with power, audio, RJ45, USB, RS232 was the obvious choice.
I measured the board with physical calipers and got a 3.94” square board. Also, using the screen caliper software, I calibrated the virtual calipers to the photos I took of the connector edge. I then began measuring all the typical dimensions such as:
1) Offset of the left side of each of the major connectors (except DB9) to determine the relative position of the connecter from the left side of the board. Here’s an example of measuring (virtual calipers) from the board left edge to the left edge of the mag jack.
While measuring the key dimensions, I take down all the numbers in a spreadsheet (shown later) for eventual faceplate placement calculations.
Layout
The overall Chameleon 1 faceplate is a pretty simple shape on bounds. The baseplate on which the board is mounted is 4.9” wide and the enclosure lid and faceplate are example 5” wide so the lid fits snugly around the baseplate. You can see an example of the Mini2440 resting on 1/4” standoffs on the baseplate of the Chameleon 1.
Based on the width of the board and the width of the baseplate, assuming the board is centered on the base plate I can easily compute the “easements” or margin between the board sides and the side of the baseplate. (4.9” - 3.94&rdquo
/ 2.
The baseplate is 0.4” tall. The standoffs add another 1/4” and the PCB is about 0.063” thick, so that is the base offset for the height of all the connectors on the faceplate.
So, the two main layout tasks are:
1) template of the board hole patterns to drill on the baseplate so the board perfectly lines up with the faceplate cutouts we’ll do in the next step.
2) faceplate connector cutouts so the cutouts are exactly the right height and right offset when the board is mounted according to the spec.
It’s convenient, when possible, to have the board connectors protrude slightly from the faceplate rather than be very recessed. It helps make the faceplate fit feel solid and positive. Fortunately, with the Mini2440, they did a good job of extending the connectors past the edge of the board so we can line the board’s mounting holes up pretty close to the edge of the baseplate and get a nice fit for the faceplate.
Using a CAD package called ViaCAD, I designed for mounting the Mini2440 on the baseplate of the Chameleon 1. Here’s a scaled down image of the template for the base plate mounting for the Mini2440:
The template is made to cut out and overlay over the Chameleon 1 base and has the center-punch markings in the middle of each mounting hole which you need to easily center-punch the mounting holes for a perfect fit.
The faceplate template is a lot more challenging than the baseplate.
I start with a blank faceplate design, again done in ViaCAD, save it as a new faceplate and remove all the dimensions from the drawing (planning later to prototype with it, so using a laser cutter, for example, I don’t want anything except the cutouts as lines on the design.
Here’s the blank faceplate design I start with:
Using all the connector height, width, and offset measurements I mentioned earlier, I create a spreadsheet that helps to easily identify the X / Y offsets of the various connectors as they map to the 5” x 2” faceplate. The spreadsheet accounts for the width of the board, the margins on the side of the baseplate, the baseplate height, PCB thickness, standoff height, and full width of the faceplate.
Here’s a quick example of a working spreadsheet I use to start laying out the connector cutouts on the faceplate:
This serves as a pretty accurate but not final guide to initially placing connector cutouts on the faceplate.
Most of the cutouts are pretty simple - holes and squares. Love those. The harder cutouts are for odd shaped connectors like DB9. So, one of the things I had to create was a DB9 cutout for the Mini2440. Later on in this article I developed a video tutorial on how to create a DB9 cutout from scratch using a CAD package. Once I have the DB9 cutout, I can add it to the faceplate design.
Using the spreadsheet computations and DB9 cutout, I can complete the Mini2440 faceplate design which looks like this (image is not 100% scaled):
Prototyping
Before submitting a design like this to have manufactured at a sheet metal fabricator or laser cutter for a lexan version of it, we like to prototype it by using cardstock or some type of heavy paper. This lets us see exactly how everything’s lining up and tweak any positions or sizes if needed.
So, the beautiful thing about using CAD programs is you can print a design at scale and use that scale pattern to test and prototype.
Using an 8 1/2” x 11” piece of black card stock, I cut out an oversize boundary around the printed faceplate design and tape it to the card stock.
Using an Exacto, I cut the holes out of the design along with all the connector cutouts. The last thing is to cut the faceplate boundary out of the card stock from the template and remove the white plate off the cardstock.
Next the Mini2440 can be mounted on the baseplate. Using the baseplate template, I line it up with the physical baseplate of the Chameleon 1 and tape it in place directly on the baseplate. This will guide the next step, creating the center-punched holes for mounting the board.
The baseplate template in place, I center punch the holes for the board. It’s best to cut a short, thin piece of wood (0.35”-0.4&rdquo over which the baseplate can straddle so the center-punching doesn’t bend the baseplate. It supports it so you can easily drill it later, too.
Next, flip it over and using a sharp awl or nail, tap a small center-punch dent into the base plate precisely where the template center holes are (there’s a small dot in the center of the mounting hole.) The center punch will keep the drill bit from skating when you drill out the holes. This is really important to make sure the faceplate lines up perfectly in a later step.
With the 4 mounting holes center-punched, you can see the small indents in the baseplate where you drill:
Next, simply drill out the center punched holes with a drill press or hand drill.
I used a hand drill. 3/32” bit for 4-40 holes works well. Keep the wood block underneath the baseplate during drilling to catch the drill when it breaks through.
With the mounting holes drilled, I can add 1/4” standoffs and the 4-40 screws to attach the Mini2440 to the baseplate:
Using the black faceplate prototype I cutout a few steps back, I can literally screw it onto a Chameleon 1 and start checking it out. From a distance it looks remarkably like a real faceplate. On my first prototype, the DB9 cutout came in too high and too small for the hex studs, so I learned right away what I had to do, trimmed the cardstock and rechecked the fit.
Here’s the prototype faceplate on a Chameleon 1 taken in a light studio to help see what the production version might look like:
We’ll be creating a large cutout in the top of the lid for the Friendly ARM LCD display, but for those who use the board standalone without the display, a Chameleon 1 basic + a production version of this faceplate is all that’s needed to have a sweet lid for the Mini2440.
For those of you interested in how to create complex shapes for faceplate cutouts, you can watch the video below where I do a tutorial on creating a DB9 cutout with a CAD tool.
Tutorial for Creating a DB9 Cutout
One of the key skills you need to create your own faceplates is to be comfortable with a CAD tool. In our case, for the production units, our designs go into SolidWorks because our Chameleon 1 manufacturer, Advantage Manufacturing (Colorado Springs, CO), has the technology to take the SolidWorks CAD models directly into sheet metal CAM files needed to punch it all out to spec in industrial volumes.
However, if we’re making a few faceplates and can’t justify punching several hundred that are required to make going through sheet metal manufacturing, we can have the faceplate laser cut on Lexan in a number of colors like dark smoked or even sold black. This is a very cost effective useful way to make custom, professional looking faceplates for Chameleon 1 enclosures.
Fortunately, the kinds of functions and features needed to create complex cutouts on a faceplate can be easily achieved with a consumer level CAD package. We use ViaCAD for these.
The video tutorial below takes you through making a complex cutout shape like a DB9 using ViaCAD and this is the design I’ve used for making the Mini2440 faceplate’s DB9 cutout:
Wrap up
We have a few more things to wrap up this week on the design including getting a lid cutout for the FriendlyARM touch display. Our next steps are to get a Lexan version of the faceplate made and do our final adjustments. We’ll probably first offer the faceplate in a smoked Lexan and see how sales go before committing the faceplate to sheet metal. Will update the blog and site when the Mini2440 faceplate is available for sale.
If you have a popular development board for which you’d like to see a new Chameleon 1 faceplate, contact us and we’ll see what we can do to help you out.
Landon Cox
www.ESawdust.com
The article is broken down into sections including measurement, layout, prototyping and finally, there’s a video tutorial on how to create a complex cutout shape, a DB9 cutout, using a consumer grade C.A.D. package, ViaCAD (Windows and Mac versions.)
ESawdust follower, @BusError (Michel), maintainer of the embedded Linux distro for the Mini2440, put me in touch with Charlie Springer of Industrial ARMWorks who was kind enough to supply us with a Mini2440 and FriendlyARM displays to start sizing up.
The Mini2440
In case you’re not familiar with the board, this is a top-down shot of the Mini2440. I put a physical ruler nearby so I could calibrate photos. I have a virtual caliper in the image also which is showing the board to be around 3.94” square.
Measuring
The first order of business is to determine the orientation of the board and identify the side that makes the most sense to expose via the faceplate. In the case of the Mini2440, the side with power, audio, RJ45, USB, RS232 was the obvious choice.
I measured the board with physical calipers and got a 3.94” square board. Also, using the screen caliper software, I calibrated the virtual calipers to the photos I took of the connector edge. I then began measuring all the typical dimensions such as:
1) Offset of the left side of each of the major connectors (except DB9) to determine the relative position of the connecter from the left side of the board. Here’s an example of measuring (virtual calipers) from the board left edge to the left edge of the mag jack.
While measuring the key dimensions, I take down all the numbers in a spreadsheet (shown later) for eventual faceplate placement calculations.
Layout
The overall Chameleon 1 faceplate is a pretty simple shape on bounds. The baseplate on which the board is mounted is 4.9” wide and the enclosure lid and faceplate are example 5” wide so the lid fits snugly around the baseplate. You can see an example of the Mini2440 resting on 1/4” standoffs on the baseplate of the Chameleon 1.
Based on the width of the board and the width of the baseplate, assuming the board is centered on the base plate I can easily compute the “easements” or margin between the board sides and the side of the baseplate. (4.9” - 3.94&rdquo
/ 2. The baseplate is 0.4” tall. The standoffs add another 1/4” and the PCB is about 0.063” thick, so that is the base offset for the height of all the connectors on the faceplate.
So, the two main layout tasks are:
1) template of the board hole patterns to drill on the baseplate so the board perfectly lines up with the faceplate cutouts we’ll do in the next step.
2) faceplate connector cutouts so the cutouts are exactly the right height and right offset when the board is mounted according to the spec.
It’s convenient, when possible, to have the board connectors protrude slightly from the faceplate rather than be very recessed. It helps make the faceplate fit feel solid and positive. Fortunately, with the Mini2440, they did a good job of extending the connectors past the edge of the board so we can line the board’s mounting holes up pretty close to the edge of the baseplate and get a nice fit for the faceplate.
Using a CAD package called ViaCAD, I designed for mounting the Mini2440 on the baseplate of the Chameleon 1. Here’s a scaled down image of the template for the base plate mounting for the Mini2440:
The template is made to cut out and overlay over the Chameleon 1 base and has the center-punch markings in the middle of each mounting hole which you need to easily center-punch the mounting holes for a perfect fit.
The faceplate template is a lot more challenging than the baseplate.
I start with a blank faceplate design, again done in ViaCAD, save it as a new faceplate and remove all the dimensions from the drawing (planning later to prototype with it, so using a laser cutter, for example, I don’t want anything except the cutouts as lines on the design.
Here’s the blank faceplate design I start with:
Using all the connector height, width, and offset measurements I mentioned earlier, I create a spreadsheet that helps to easily identify the X / Y offsets of the various connectors as they map to the 5” x 2” faceplate. The spreadsheet accounts for the width of the board, the margins on the side of the baseplate, the baseplate height, PCB thickness, standoff height, and full width of the faceplate.
Here’s a quick example of a working spreadsheet I use to start laying out the connector cutouts on the faceplate:
This serves as a pretty accurate but not final guide to initially placing connector cutouts on the faceplate.
Most of the cutouts are pretty simple - holes and squares. Love those. The harder cutouts are for odd shaped connectors like DB9. So, one of the things I had to create was a DB9 cutout for the Mini2440. Later on in this article I developed a video tutorial on how to create a DB9 cutout from scratch using a CAD package. Once I have the DB9 cutout, I can add it to the faceplate design.
Using the spreadsheet computations and DB9 cutout, I can complete the Mini2440 faceplate design which looks like this (image is not 100% scaled):
Prototyping
Before submitting a design like this to have manufactured at a sheet metal fabricator or laser cutter for a lexan version of it, we like to prototype it by using cardstock or some type of heavy paper. This lets us see exactly how everything’s lining up and tweak any positions or sizes if needed.
So, the beautiful thing about using CAD programs is you can print a design at scale and use that scale pattern to test and prototype.
Using an 8 1/2” x 11” piece of black card stock, I cut out an oversize boundary around the printed faceplate design and tape it to the card stock.
Using an Exacto, I cut the holes out of the design along with all the connector cutouts. The last thing is to cut the faceplate boundary out of the card stock from the template and remove the white plate off the cardstock.
Next the Mini2440 can be mounted on the baseplate. Using the baseplate template, I line it up with the physical baseplate of the Chameleon 1 and tape it in place directly on the baseplate. This will guide the next step, creating the center-punched holes for mounting the board.
The baseplate template in place, I center punch the holes for the board. It’s best to cut a short, thin piece of wood (0.35”-0.4&rdquo
over which the baseplate can straddle so the center-punching doesn’t bend the baseplate. It supports it so you can easily drill it later, too.Next, flip it over and using a sharp awl or nail, tap a small center-punch dent into the base plate precisely where the template center holes are (there’s a small dot in the center of the mounting hole.) The center punch will keep the drill bit from skating when you drill out the holes. This is really important to make sure the faceplate lines up perfectly in a later step.
With the 4 mounting holes center-punched, you can see the small indents in the baseplate where you drill:
Next, simply drill out the center punched holes with a drill press or hand drill.
I used a hand drill. 3/32” bit for 4-40 holes works well. Keep the wood block underneath the baseplate during drilling to catch the drill when it breaks through.
With the mounting holes drilled, I can add 1/4” standoffs and the 4-40 screws to attach the Mini2440 to the baseplate:
Using the black faceplate prototype I cutout a few steps back, I can literally screw it onto a Chameleon 1 and start checking it out. From a distance it looks remarkably like a real faceplate. On my first prototype, the DB9 cutout came in too high and too small for the hex studs, so I learned right away what I had to do, trimmed the cardstock and rechecked the fit.
Here’s the prototype faceplate on a Chameleon 1 taken in a light studio to help see what the production version might look like:
We’ll be creating a large cutout in the top of the lid for the Friendly ARM LCD display, but for those who use the board standalone without the display, a Chameleon 1 basic + a production version of this faceplate is all that’s needed to have a sweet lid for the Mini2440.
For those of you interested in how to create complex shapes for faceplate cutouts, you can watch the video below where I do a tutorial on creating a DB9 cutout with a CAD tool.
Tutorial for Creating a DB9 Cutout
One of the key skills you need to create your own faceplates is to be comfortable with a CAD tool. In our case, for the production units, our designs go into SolidWorks because our Chameleon 1 manufacturer, Advantage Manufacturing (Colorado Springs, CO), has the technology to take the SolidWorks CAD models directly into sheet metal CAM files needed to punch it all out to spec in industrial volumes.
However, if we’re making a few faceplates and can’t justify punching several hundred that are required to make going through sheet metal manufacturing, we can have the faceplate laser cut on Lexan in a number of colors like dark smoked or even sold black. This is a very cost effective useful way to make custom, professional looking faceplates for Chameleon 1 enclosures.
Fortunately, the kinds of functions and features needed to create complex cutouts on a faceplate can be easily achieved with a consumer level CAD package. We use ViaCAD for these.
The video tutorial below takes you through making a complex cutout shape like a DB9 using ViaCAD and this is the design I’ve used for making the Mini2440 faceplate’s DB9 cutout:
Make a DB-9 Cutout with ViaCAD from Landon Cox on Vimeo.
Wrap up
We have a few more things to wrap up this week on the design including getting a lid cutout for the FriendlyARM touch display. Our next steps are to get a Lexan version of the faceplate made and do our final adjustments. We’ll probably first offer the faceplate in a smoked Lexan and see how sales go before committing the faceplate to sheet metal. Will update the blog and site when the Mini2440 faceplate is available for sale.
If you have a popular development board for which you’d like to see a new Chameleon 1 faceplate, contact us and we’ll see what we can do to help you out.
Landon Cox
www.ESawdust.com
Sparkfun VS1000 Ogg Vorbis Player Review
09/19/2009 10:56 Filed in: Ogg | Sparkfun VS1000
Summary - This is a review of the Sparkfun VS1000 Ogg Vorbis audio player in the context of using it for a microcontroller sound extension. The review and use of the Sparkfun Ogg Vorbis board is primarily contained in the video piece accompanying this article. Sparkfun released this board the week of September 14th, 2009 and this is an initial review of the device. [Full disclosure: we do business with Sparkun - we’re a reseller and they resell a product of ours, the Chameleon 1.]
Read More...
Read More...
Speed Climbing Timing Lessons Learned
07/14/2009 07:29 Filed in: Speed timing | USAC
Synopsis - the speed climbing timing system got its biggest test yet when we deployed two systems for the USA Climbing nationals in Sandy, UT near Salt Lake City this past weekend. This article is about some of the technical lessons learned. Previous articles in the speed climbing timing series discussed many other lessons learned as we developed, but this one is specific to the Nationals event. It includes a video of various speed races showing how the system works in a real event.
Overall I had some very positive feedback on the system, particularly the laser based hand sensors. The climbers, coaches told me, really liked them. They’re very sensitive and positive and easier to hit than a small button switch they’re used to. They’re easy to coach to, also. You have to touch the yellow line or it will not stop, simple as that.
The System in Action
Video after the breakl... Read More...
Overall I had some very positive feedback on the system, particularly the laser based hand sensors. The climbers, coaches told me, really liked them. They’re very sensitive and positive and easier to hit than a small button switch they’re used to. They’re easy to coach to, also. You have to touch the yellow line or it will not stop, simple as that.
The System in Action
Video after the breakl... Read More...
ESawdust Tour (Electronic Sausage Making)
Synopsis - the whole point of this article is: “projects are messy”. When I’m in the middle of building, I am always thinking - “A ‘professional’ machinist, woodworker, or EE would know where everything is and would have the decks clear except for what he’s working on at the time”. I envision this ideal engineer out there with a pristine machine shop or clean-room quality lab amiably knocking out cool stuff right and left. I labor thinking everyone who’s doing things like this must be orderly. Me? Ha. I’m always looking for my wire strippers, phillips, or multimeter buried under the archeological layers of schematics and spools of wire. Maybe you’re the pro who has it orderly, but I throw this out for public consumption because for me, this is my reality when I’m in the middle of prototyping or building projects. Look at this as a small tour of ESawdust labs - such as they are.
[Afterthought: maybe this article is more about what defines an ideal “office” for a “maker” or “builder” which involves embedded hardware, software, metal, wood, power tools and paint. Not saying I have the ideal setup (far from it), but if you have thoughts on productive prototyping environments - tweet me at @esawdust and let me know]
Many more pictures after the break Read More...
[Afterthought: maybe this article is more about what defines an ideal “office” for a “maker” or “builder” which involves embedded hardware, software, metal, wood, power tools and paint. Not saying I have the ideal setup (far from it), but if you have thoughts on productive prototyping environments - tweet me at @esawdust and let me know]
Many more pictures after the break Read More...
Speed Climbing Laser-based hand sensor
06/25/2009 21:10 Filed in: Speed timing | Laser
Synopsis: Based on more test results from the USAC Northeast divisional championships, the IR-based sensors were fairly effective (195 out 200 climbs on the qualifier day worked fine, 5 obviously didn’t). There were some issues getting it running during installation. I needed to rethink the hand sensor. There were 2 problems. One, as I’ve demonstrated in other articles, there are weak or dead IR zones a climber could hit if he didn’t hit it with a flat hand - the sensor would not stop the clock in that case. Two, there were glitchy problems when the long (50ft) cable we made was used from the display to the hand sensors. The behavior was similar to EMI problems though as I was not at the New England competition, I had to surmise based on descriptions I heard. This is the redesign of the hand sensors to fix these two problems before the USAC national climbing competition in Sandy, UT July 10-12, 2009.
Larger images later in the article. Read More...
Larger images later in the article. Read More...
Flip UltraHD - It's Not Just Me Who Has Problems With It
Synopsis: My last article, Flip UltraHD - It Doesn’t Just Work, must have struck a chord because it’s been the most popular article on the site since I posted it. Judging by the search strings I’m seeing that land people on the sawdust website, it’s clear others are having some of the same issues. Here’s a sampling of FlipHD related searches I’m seeing hit sawdust:
"flip ultra hd An error occurred while interacting with your camcorder. Please make sure your camcorder is connected to your computer."
"flip ultra hd charging paused"
"flip firmware ultrahd"
"Flip ultraHD check battery pack error"
"flip ultra hd, battery doesn't charge"
"flip ultrahd upgrade"
"why does the flip ultrahd say check battery pack?"
"check battery pack charging paused Flip UltraHD"
"Error code: 27, 2 An error occurred while interacting with your camcorder. Please make sure your camcorder is connected to your computer. Error removing file '/Volumes/FLIPVIDEO/System/VIEWER/FlipShare.ico'. Thread info: Upgrad",1,1.1,""
"flip camcorder error code 27,2"
"flip ultrahd firmware version"
"why doesn't my flipshare camera always come out HD
"flipshare 4.5",
"how much time left on flip ultra hd battery"
"Flip ultraHD battery doesn't charge"
"flip video problems"
"flip cam error 27,2"
"flip video error 27,2"
"Flip Error code: 27, 2" Read More...
"flip ultra hd An error occurred while interacting with your camcorder. Please make sure your camcorder is connected to your computer."
"flip ultra hd charging paused"
"flip firmware ultrahd"
"Flip ultraHD check battery pack error"
"flip ultra hd, battery doesn't charge"
"flip ultrahd upgrade"
"why does the flip ultrahd say check battery pack?"
"check battery pack charging paused Flip UltraHD"
"Error code: 27, 2 An error occurred while interacting with your camcorder. Please make sure your camcorder is connected to your computer. Error removing file '/Volumes/FLIPVIDEO/System/VIEWER/FlipShare.ico'. Thread info: Upgrad",1,1.1,""
"flip camcorder error code 27,2"
"flip ultrahd firmware version"
"why doesn't my flipshare camera always come out HD
"flipshare 4.5",
"how much time left on flip ultra hd battery"
"Flip ultraHD battery doesn't charge"
"flip video problems"
"flip cam error 27,2"
"flip video error 27,2"
"Flip Error code: 27, 2" Read More...
Flip UltraHD - It Doesn't "Just Work"
Synopsis: I recently bought a Flip UltraHD after reading many good reviews for it. However, my experience with this device was completely different. The bottom line is that I could never upgrade the firmware in the device on either Windows or OS X. I wasted a lot of time with Flip's tech support. After having installed the latest FlipShare desktop software, the tech support had me download it all again (115MB), uninstall everything, reinstall it. There were some real surprises, too, like no reset switch...if you want to hard reset the UltraHD, you have to pull the battery and wait 2 days (not joking.) Read More...
Improving Screen Caliper Accuracy
Synopsis: In the prior article, Real-world Measurements in Virtual Space, I introduced the concepts of using virtual calipers to measure real-world objects on your computer screen. In this article I show how to improve the accuracy of the measurements you take on the screen by carrying forward the same example of measuring various dimensions of a small printed circuit board. It's possible to greatly improve the accuracy of Screen Calipers by wisely choosing your calibration points.
In the first video of the previous article, I showed the calibration process by calibrating using the known spacing of the breakout board pinouts. Because this board has standard 0.1" pin spacing, I calibrated based on the outside edge-to-outside-edge of a pin pair that represented what I knew to be 0.1". This is a good start but can be improved. Here is a demonstration of the percentage errors and improvements in accuracy based on better calibration.
First, here's the actual caliper measurement of the physical board in order to show what the goal is. Obviously, if you have the physical board and calipers, you wouldn't necessarily need Screen Calipers, but I'm using real calipers to compare to Screen Calipers in order to illustrate how accurate Screen Calipers can be. The only way to do that is to compare actual measurements or an engineering drawing.
These measurements are inches because I calibrated to 0.1" and wanted to keep the units the same throughout the illustration. So, the actual width is 1.35 inches according to my real-world calipers. The height is measured:
and is 1.105 inches.
Compare these actual values to the initial Screen Caliper measurements when the calibration was done on a single 0.1" hole spacing:
This shows 1.424 vs the real 1.35 inches - off by 7/100ths of an inch. Doesn't sound like much, but it's quite a bit and we'd like to do better. The height was measured by Screen Calipers to be:
1.156 inches versus the actual 1.105 - off by a little over 5/100ths of an inch.
Instead of calibrating to a single 0.1" hole spacing, I calibrated to 10 holes or exactly 1" on the board. After setting the calibration to a larger length of known dimension, it's possible to get very accurate readings. After the new calibration, here are the results:
Screen Calipers shows 1.352 vs the actual 1.350 - we reduced the error from 7/100ths to 2/1000ths of an inch just by picking a better calibration point pair. The height compares like this:
Screen Calipers reads 1.098 vs the actual of 1.105. This reduced the error from 5/100ths to 7/1000ths...again a great improvement.
The reason calibrating on a smaller scale, even if the distance in the photo is well known, is that there are both accuracy and precision errors in setting the length and that error is a larger percentage of a small distance than it is a large distance. So, by calibrating to a small distance and then measuring a larger distance, you multiply that error over and over across that larger distance. By calibrating to a larger known distance, that error is a smaller portion of the distance and therefore any error is much less when measuring smaller or similar distances.
Conclusion
The moral of the story is that you can get highly accurate Screen Caliper measurements by calibrating to the largest known distance within the subject photograph.
In the first video of the previous article, I showed the calibration process by calibrating using the known spacing of the breakout board pinouts. Because this board has standard 0.1" pin spacing, I calibrated based on the outside edge-to-outside-edge of a pin pair that represented what I knew to be 0.1". This is a good start but can be improved. Here is a demonstration of the percentage errors and improvements in accuracy based on better calibration.
First, here's the actual caliper measurement of the physical board in order to show what the goal is. Obviously, if you have the physical board and calipers, you wouldn't necessarily need Screen Calipers, but I'm using real calipers to compare to Screen Calipers in order to illustrate how accurate Screen Calipers can be. The only way to do that is to compare actual measurements or an engineering drawing.
These measurements are inches because I calibrated to 0.1" and wanted to keep the units the same throughout the illustration. So, the actual width is 1.35 inches according to my real-world calipers. The height is measured:
and is 1.105 inches.
Compare these actual values to the initial Screen Caliper measurements when the calibration was done on a single 0.1" hole spacing:
This shows 1.424 vs the real 1.35 inches - off by 7/100ths of an inch. Doesn't sound like much, but it's quite a bit and we'd like to do better. The height was measured by Screen Calipers to be:
1.156 inches versus the actual 1.105 - off by a little over 5/100ths of an inch.
Instead of calibrating to a single 0.1" hole spacing, I calibrated to 10 holes or exactly 1" on the board. After setting the calibration to a larger length of known dimension, it's possible to get very accurate readings. After the new calibration, here are the results:
Screen Calipers shows 1.352 vs the actual 1.350 - we reduced the error from 7/100ths to 2/1000ths of an inch just by picking a better calibration point pair. The height compares like this:
Screen Calipers reads 1.098 vs the actual of 1.105. This reduced the error from 5/100ths to 7/1000ths...again a great improvement.
The reason calibrating on a smaller scale, even if the distance in the photo is well known, is that there are both accuracy and precision errors in setting the length and that error is a larger percentage of a small distance than it is a large distance. So, by calibrating to a small distance and then measuring a larger distance, you multiply that error over and over across that larger distance. By calibrating to a larger known distance, that error is a smaller portion of the distance and therefore any error is much less when measuring smaller or similar distances.
Conclusion
The moral of the story is that you can get highly accurate Screen Caliper measurements by calibrating to the largest known distance within the subject photograph.
Real-world Measurements in Virtual Space
06/10/2009 13:44 Filed in: Screen Calipers | Measurement | Virtual Calipers | Software Calipers | Virtual Measurement
Synopsis: This article shows how to use software calipers to measure the size of objects of any scale in images on your computer screen. I was looking for this exact solution for a long time and didn't even know what to call it in order to search for it on Google. The software is called "Screen Calipers" and it's exactly what its name says.
I searched for "Virtual Calipers", "Software Calipers", "Virtual Measurement" and other variations before finding this solution. I also tried some other software packages which were no where near as good as this, so I hope this review is helpful in identifying a genre of software that's a bit difficult to find but extremely useful.
In this example, I demonstrate how to measure the distance between two mounting holes on a circuit board without knowing the dimensions of the board or having an engineering drawing for reference.
Screen Calipers is cross-platform software for both Mac and Windows - Screen Calipers Macintosh and Screen Calipers Windows version are only $29. It's really a great tool if you spend much time sizing up physical objects and images.
The Problem: I'll use a real-world example: Lets say we wanted to know the dimensions of the mounting hole pattern of a Sparkfun XBee board, the XBee Explorer Regulated. We start with photos of the board which look like this:
Accurate dimensions are not published for this board. The goal is to find the distance between mounting holes on a circuit board using just the top-down image of the PCB.
Discussion
While Sparkfun helpfully superimposes a ruled gauge with top-down pictures, those aren't sufficient to get real dimensions for the hole pattern. Also, they don't supply the actual physical (CAD) dimensions on their site. Referring to just these pictures, we can still figure out fairly accurate dimensions of this board even if the superimposed gauge didn't exist.
The gray rulers in the image are added in post-production with Adobe Illustrator, so while I think they are good for general size considerations, they're mainly there as a scale "hint" rather than a full engineering dimension. We'll be able to get a lot more accurate measurement with Screen Calipers and measure anything we want on the board while we're at it including the hole spacing so we can design something that mounts this board.
Step 1) Start with the largest image you can get to display on your screen - this will help the accuracy of this technique. Also, the less oblique you can get the image, the better. Top-down is great. Lots of images are top down including maps, so this same technique would work with many maps and miles or kilometers (assuming a Plate-Carree equirectangle geographical, ie: square projection is used) as well as it works with PCBs and millimeters.
In our case, the image itself is larger than actual size which is good:
Step 2) Calibrate the Screen Calipers to some known dimension on the board. It's tempting to calibrate to the gray rulers since they're right there, however, since I know those are added to the image in post production, I don't trust their accuracy and take them only as a hint. It's better to calibrate to something directly on the board itself. In this case, we know the hole patterns on the breakout board are on the standard 0.1" spacing which makes this board easy to plugin to protoboards and breadboards. I know this board was produced with a schematic capture tool, Eagle, so I know the hole spacing is very accurate.
To calibrate the calipers, launch the Screen Calipers and overlay the device on the 0.1" spaced holes. Theoretically it's the hole centers that are 0.1" apart, but in practice you can measure from the outside left of one hole to the outside left of the adjacent hole and that should be 0.1" as well and it's easier to align a caliper guide to a hard boundary like that.
This movie demonstrates this process. Once the calipers have been positioned, you can set the calibration which is essentially telling Screen Caliper software that X many pixels equal Y many "units". In this case it's about 25 pixels to 0.1" inch.
Step 3) Now that we've calibrated the Screen Calipers to a known dimension on the board, we can start measuring stuff. In our case, we want to figure out the dimensions of the center-points of the mounting holes on the board. To do that we could estimate by placing the calipers into the middle of the open holes by sight, but it's a little more accurate to measure the outside dimension of one hole to the outside of the other hole, then measure the inside to inside of the same holes. You can also get the diameter of the hole itself with the calipers.
Once we have the outside to outside and inside to inside measurements, the center points can be derived.
This movie shows the process of measuring the outside-to-outside and inside-to-inside dimensions of both the horizontal and vertical mounting holes on the board.
If the outside-to-outside horizontal measurement is X and the inside-to-inside horizontal is X', then X-X' is equal to 2X the diameter of the holes. The center-point is 1/4 of that number offset from the outside of the hole towards the middle. Same with the vertical - Y and Y'.
Using the other measurements such as the physical width and height of the board, the center-point distance of the mounting holes can be computed based on the edge of the board also.
All this is much easier to do off a high-quality, enlarged photograph than it is the physical object itself. Sometimes you don't have access to the physical object or its engineering drawings but you can determine a great amount of physical data using this technique. If you can find an object in the photograph that has a known size - say a coin, a Bic pen, hole spacing, soda can - then you can calibrate the calipers to give you some interesting distance information.
I still consider these measurements estimates, but they are quite accurate in lieu of not having engineering specs.
Conclusion - the Screen Calipers provide all the information needed to determine the dimensions of the board and various offsets on the board to determine things like center points for mounting. You can click the links below which take you to an ESellerate commerce page if you'd like to buy the software.
I searched for "Virtual Calipers", "Software Calipers", "Virtual Measurement" and other variations before finding this solution. I also tried some other software packages which were no where near as good as this, so I hope this review is helpful in identifying a genre of software that's a bit difficult to find but extremely useful.
In this example, I demonstrate how to measure the distance between two mounting holes on a circuit board without knowing the dimensions of the board or having an engineering drawing for reference.
Screen Calipers is cross-platform software for both Mac and Windows - Screen Calipers Macintosh and Screen Calipers Windows version are only $29. It's really a great tool if you spend much time sizing up physical objects and images.
The Problem: I'll use a real-world example: Lets say we wanted to know the dimensions of the mounting hole pattern of a Sparkfun XBee board, the XBee Explorer Regulated. We start with photos of the board which look like this:
Accurate dimensions are not published for this board. The goal is to find the distance between mounting holes on a circuit board using just the top-down image of the PCB.
Discussion
While Sparkfun helpfully superimposes a ruled gauge with top-down pictures, those aren't sufficient to get real dimensions for the hole pattern. Also, they don't supply the actual physical (CAD) dimensions on their site. Referring to just these pictures, we can still figure out fairly accurate dimensions of this board even if the superimposed gauge didn't exist.
The gray rulers in the image are added in post-production with Adobe Illustrator, so while I think they are good for general size considerations, they're mainly there as a scale "hint" rather than a full engineering dimension. We'll be able to get a lot more accurate measurement with Screen Calipers and measure anything we want on the board while we're at it including the hole spacing so we can design something that mounts this board.
Step 1) Start with the largest image you can get to display on your screen - this will help the accuracy of this technique. Also, the less oblique you can get the image, the better. Top-down is great. Lots of images are top down including maps, so this same technique would work with many maps and miles or kilometers (assuming a Plate-Carree equirectangle geographical, ie: square projection is used) as well as it works with PCBs and millimeters.
In our case, the image itself is larger than actual size which is good:
Step 2) Calibrate the Screen Calipers to some known dimension on the board. It's tempting to calibrate to the gray rulers since they're right there, however, since I know those are added to the image in post production, I don't trust their accuracy and take them only as a hint. It's better to calibrate to something directly on the board itself. In this case, we know the hole patterns on the breakout board are on the standard 0.1" spacing which makes this board easy to plugin to protoboards and breadboards. I know this board was produced with a schematic capture tool, Eagle, so I know the hole spacing is very accurate.
To calibrate the calipers, launch the Screen Calipers and overlay the device on the 0.1" spaced holes. Theoretically it's the hole centers that are 0.1" apart, but in practice you can measure from the outside left of one hole to the outside left of the adjacent hole and that should be 0.1" as well and it's easier to align a caliper guide to a hard boundary like that.
This movie demonstrates this process. Once the calipers have been positioned, you can set the calibration which is essentially telling Screen Caliper software that X many pixels equal Y many "units". In this case it's about 25 pixels to 0.1" inch.
Screen Calipers Calibration Demonstration from Landon Cox on Vimeo.
Step 3) Now that we've calibrated the Screen Calipers to a known dimension on the board, we can start measuring stuff. In our case, we want to figure out the dimensions of the center-points of the mounting holes on the board. To do that we could estimate by placing the calipers into the middle of the open holes by sight, but it's a little more accurate to measure the outside dimension of one hole to the outside of the other hole, then measure the inside to inside of the same holes. You can also get the diameter of the hole itself with the calipers.
Once we have the outside to outside and inside to inside measurements, the center points can be derived.
This movie shows the process of measuring the outside-to-outside and inside-to-inside dimensions of both the horizontal and vertical mounting holes on the board.
Real-world Measurements in Virtual Space from Landon Cox on Vimeo.
If the outside-to-outside horizontal measurement is X and the inside-to-inside horizontal is X', then X-X' is equal to 2X the diameter of the holes. The center-point is 1/4 of that number offset from the outside of the hole towards the middle. Same with the vertical - Y and Y'.
Using the other measurements such as the physical width and height of the board, the center-point distance of the mounting holes can be computed based on the edge of the board also.
All this is much easier to do off a high-quality, enlarged photograph than it is the physical object itself. Sometimes you don't have access to the physical object or its engineering drawings but you can determine a great amount of physical data using this technique. If you can find an object in the photograph that has a known size - say a coin, a Bic pen, hole spacing, soda can - then you can calibrate the calipers to give you some interesting distance information.
I still consider these measurements estimates, but they are quite accurate in lieu of not having engineering specs.
Conclusion - the Screen Calipers provide all the information needed to determine the dimensions of the board and various offsets on the board to determine things like center points for mounting. You can click the links below which take you to an ESellerate commerce page if you'd like to buy the software.
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