GitHub for hardware

[Alex]

Apperntly... Thought someone might be interested.

http://upverter.com/

[Michael Shiloh]

These guys are very active in the open source hardware discussions, are
very open to suggestions, and would love feedback and participation from
people just like you (all).

Let me know if you'd like an introduction to the founder. He's a regular
guy and happy to chat, and as I said, wants to hear from you.

Michael

[Tim Storey]

Just had a look, I rather like it...

[Gavin Bell]

do also have a look at solderpad.com by the OSHUG guys Paul Downey @psd and Andrew Black @9600

[Tim Storey]

ah yes okay, nice too

\t

[Michael Shiloh]

in the 5 minutes i spent poking around, i was much more impressed with
solderpad.com.

* api(1)
* tag cloud shows good activity where i'd like to see it
* the few projects i clicked on were real; on upverter, many seemed to
be tests of the system that were abandoned.

i'm inclined to try solderpad for my class projects.

would love to hear of experience and observations from any of you

(1) i have a side project/obsession to encourage all projects to have
apis. my theory is that apis are the next big step in collaborative
development. www.apiforeverything.com (or something like that)

[Martin Klang]

On 24 Nov 2011, at 21:48, Gavin Bell wrote:

> do also have a look at solderpad.com by the OSHUG guys Paul Downey @psd and Andrew Black @9600

that [1] doesn't look like our Andrew Black!

/m

[1] http://solderpad.com/9600/

[Martin Klang]

for one thing it seems to draw op-amps as ic's, and trimpots as... boxes?

compare this:
http://upverter.com/janrod/0000000000006700/Simple-OpAmp-based-Pre-Amplifier-Circuit/

with the identical circuit here (minus one trimpot):
http://www.rason.org/Projects/opamps/opamps.htm

/m

[Michael Shiloh]

true. how does that compare to solderpad? i spent some time searching
and found no circuits using op-amps. the lack of a search box on
solderpad really sucks, but they identify this as a missing feature.

i think the bigger difference is that upverter seems to require you to
create or import your circuit in their capture tool, while solderpad
lets you use whatever schematic capture tool you want and then to upload
the files. actually the only examples i looked at all seem to be made in
eagle, but i could find nothing that said you have to use eagle.

am i correct in my assessment?

[Paul Downey]

Hello, I'm psd, and am working with Andrew Back (9600) on SolderPad.

> true. how does that compare to solderpad? i spent some time searching and
> found no circuits using op-amps. the lack of a search box on solderpad
> really sucks, but they identify this as a missing feature.
> i think the bigger difference is that upverter seems to require you to
> create or  import  your circuit in their capture tool, while solderpad lets
> you use whatever schematic capture tool you want and then to upload the
> files. actually the only examples i looked at all seem to be made in eagle,
> but i could find nothing that said you have to use eagle.
> am i correct in my assessment?

Search is currently a missing feature, but I'd suggest digging into
some of the "featured" projects randomly put on the home page, and
digging into the tags for tools, etc, e.g.:

http://solderpad.com/tags/orcad
http://solderpad.com/tags/altium
http://solderpad.com/tags/eagle
http://solderpad.com/tags/geda
http://solderpad.com/tags/fritzing

Possibly of interest to London hackspacers are Ken Boak's Nanode projects:

http://solderpad.com/monsonite/

Al Wood and the Thames Valley RepRap groups' boards:

http://solderpad.com/folknology/

The Open Energy Monitor projects:

http://solderpad.com/openenergymon/

And a variety of hack boards such as Tautic:

http://solderpad.com/tautic/

JeeLabs:

http://solderpad.com/jcw/

The tiny XuLA FPGA board:

http://solderpad.com/xesscorp/xula/

and we're particular fans of running Occam on the Arduio:

http://blog.solderpad.com/post/12123858445/the-concurrency-cc-board

I'm weary of comparing the two sites since they're both under active
development, but thus far I think it's far to say Upverter's focus has
been on building an in-browser schematic editor whereas SolderPad's is
to present schematics, boards and bills of materials from files
generated by existing EDA tools, stored in git.

The tour page and video endeavours to explain SolderPad's approach:

http://solderpad.com/tour

And here's a short video introducing Upverter:

http://www.demo.com/alumni/demo2011fall/250545.html

Andrew and I have been to the London Hackspace a few times and under
the banner of http://oshug.org but I'll make a point of showing my
face more often, and of course we're both happy to talk about ideas /
issues / whatever: he...@solderpad.com

--
Paul (psd)
http://blog.whatfettle.com

[Tim Storey]

Thanks for the intro Paul

\t

[Michael Shiloh]

Hi Paul,

I've been exploring solderpad and really like it. I teach a lot and am
considering using solderpad for class projects.

One suggestion that occurred to me is to review the projects every so
often and purge the ones that are empty. Some (including myself) have
made test projects to see how it works and then abandoned them.

Thanks for doing this!

Michael