Piotr Esden-Tempski @esden@chaos.social

The WTFpga #hackaday #supercon workshop was a great success! Thank you everyone who attended! If you were there I hope you had fun! :D The complete code and updated booklet are available on github. https://github.com/esden/wtfpga The only thing missing is the availability of the iCEBreaker and PMODs. I am working on that now and the crowd funding campaign will hopefully launch soon! :D https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/icebreaker-fpga

The Crowd Supply Pre-Launch page for iCEBreaker FPGA development board is finally live! If you want to be notified when the campaign launches make sure to add yourself on the page. Or just follow me mere and I will tell you. I am very excited that we are one more step closer. ;-) https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/icebreaker-fpga

‪Quick testing the iCEBreaker FPGA boards after reflow. Checking that it programs correctly, Pmod GPIO, LEDs and buttons work. The UART is tested separately in another test cycle. ‬

iCEBreaker FPGA board assembly at 16x speed. (real time 15 minutes) Unsurprisingly the small 0402 passives, that we board designers tend to sprinkle onto our boards without thinking much about, take the longest time. :D

Dispensing solder paste onto iCEBreaker FPGA panels.

‪Calibrating feeder pickup positions.‬

Finished changing over the Pick and Place machine to iCEBreaker parts!!! Tomorrow assembly begins! :D

‪Intermission: I need more feeders: Testing and sorting feeders. The ones on the left need new peeler rollers. They perished due to age :( The rest seem to have new rollers and I can use them. (I wish the replacement rollers were not so expensive. :/ )‬

Continuing change over. Only parts that need to be “loomed” into feeders remain. Plus the matrix tray for the FPGA chips.

‪Some good progress on the PnP changeover. The rest has to wait until tomorrow :)‬

Yey! Changeover time! :)

I'll be giving a talk at #KiCon2019 titled, "From idea to production. Using KiCad for open source hardware design.". I'm looking forward to seeing all of the developers and users there. Interested in joining? You can still get an "earlybird" ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kicon-2019-tickets-55951056115

The iCEBreaker FPGA March campaign update is posted! Check it out! :) https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/icebreaker-fpga/updates/march-2019-production-update

Finished testing the DIP-Switch Pmods!

Broken out DIP-Switch Pmods ready to be tested.

Cleaning the flux off the DIP-Switch Pmods. ESD brush, IPA and elbow grease. :D

Done soldering together the DIP-Switch Pmods. Next steps are finishing to break them out and then testing! :)

Finished soldering on the pin headers onto the DIP-Switch Pmods, now moving to the DIP-Switches themselves. #progress :D

Finally came around to testing of the HUB75E-mini ribbon cables and adapters. They work very nicely. This solution will be very useful when we want to make smaller driver boards or when we try to route cabling in more cramped situations, like for example P2 cubes. :D

Done reflowing the DIP-Switch Pmod panels. Now we can move on to the tedious part of soldering on the through holes parts. :)

And reflow of the DIP-Switch Pmod panels. Running two reflow ovens to keep up with the PnP. ;)

And the assembly of the DIP-Switch Pmod on the Quad PnP. Do you see the QuadAlign in flight component alignment illumination lighting up? :)