The scope is a MSO2024 4-channel 200MHz 1Gsps digital oscilloscope and
logic analyzer. More info at http://www.tek.com/products/oscilloscopes/mso2000/

Please feel free to use the scope, but we ask you to treat it nicely. Especially the probes, which are expensive and somewhat delicate. We advise you to leave them on the 10x setting unless you are absolutely sure you need the higher sensitivity — this will help avoid frying the scope inputs.

So, you have a circuit board and a bag of parts you need to assemble. Or you’ve designed a circuit board in Eagle, gotten it fabricated, and you just got it back. Now you see that the parts which looked so big in Eagle are actually REALLY DANG SMALL. What are you going to do? How are you supposed to solder that?!

Working with tiny Surface Mount parts is challenging but can be done in the comfort of your own home. Come to Dorkbot’s Surface Mount Soldering Workshop, presented by Jim Larson, held at OpenTechSpace at TechShop, on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 from 1pm to 5pm.

When you’re done, you’ll have a step-up voltage module to take a AA battery up to 5V.

To sign up, email smd-workshop@denizen.org.

Cost will be $35, payable at the class.

Please bring:

• A soldering iron
• A pair of tweezers
• A pair of wire cutters

Class will be held at:

TechShop Electronics Lab (OpenTechSpace)
10100 Southwest Allen Boulevard
Beaverton, OR 97005

As many of you may be aware Laen from dorkbotpdx has been putting together a group ordering process for circuit board fabrications somewhat like SparkFun’s BatchPCB service except with less time lag and the fabrication is done in the USA.

To introduce you to the tools needed to create circuit boards for this service (and most other circuit board services) we are presenting a workshop teaching you how to design a circuit board using Eagle PCB with an emphasis on getting designs that can be fabricated.

Workshop Time and Location

* December 5th through OpenTechSpace at Techshop (10100 SW Allen Blvd., Beaverton, OR 97005) (Google Calendar Link)

Follow-up Session:

A follow-up session will be offered on December 6th, 1pm-5pm at PNCA (NW 12th and Johnson, room 205), to go over your designs, help with any problems, and getting them ready for submission for fabrication.

Fabrication included

Signing up for the class gets you three copies of your (up to 2 square inch) design in the December order. Designs submitted by the 10th of December will be included in this months PCB run and can be picked up at the meeting on the 21st (or mailed).

Topics covered.

• Creating schematics
• Organizing your files and libraries.
• Laying out your parts effectively.
• Routing your signals
• Creating / finding parts that you need.
• Documenting your board in the silkscreen
• Using DRUs to design for a specific board fabricator
• Using the ERC to check your designs for problems

What you will need

You should have some basic understanding of circuits but it is not critical You will need to bring a laptop which is capable of running eagle (linux,windows or mac — see http://www.cadsoft.de/info.htm). The class is $35 and is limited to 30 so it is best to reserve a space in the class. Please rsvp at http://tempusdictum.com/tdproducts.html (eagle for fabrication)

The second such meeting was tonight, and we discussed doing a group project together. We seem to have settled on the idea of building some “swarm robots” — robots that individually obey simple rules but in a group are able to perform some larger function. There is an example of this at http://swarmrobot.org

Full information at http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/workshop/circuit_design_for_fabrication

Sign up for the class at http://tempusdictum.com/tdproducts.html
(class: eagle for fabrication)

OpenTechSpace, TechShop, and Tempus Dictum present an “Arduino Cult Induction” Workshop at TechShop on Sunday, October 11 2009, from 1 to 5 pm.
The cost of the workshop is $35, and includes all the parts you will need.
TechShop is at 10100 SW Allen Blvd, Beaverton (http://portlandtechshop.com/index.php/about-us)

In this workshop, you will build a complete and functional Arduino-compatible micro-controller (Dorkboard), and will upload and run a program on it. The Arduino development environment is very popular with artists and other creative people, and can be built and programmed even if you have little hardware or software experience.

To sign up for the class, go to http://tempusdictum.com/tdproducts.html
and purchase the “Cult Induction 11 October Tech Shop Session” workshop
If you have any problems, email Don Davis – don@tempusdictum.com

You will need to bring the following:

• A laptop (Mac, Windows, or Linux, although there are some problems with the latter)
• A USB cable (standard A->B type — like http://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/usb-cable/10u2-02203.htm)
• A soldering iron (20-30 watt pencil type) and solder
• Wire cutters (dikes)

Other tools that can be helpful, but are not strictly necessary, include tweezers, a magnifying glass / helping hands, wire stripper, needle nose nosed pliers or small hemostats (locking forceps), etc.

You can find most of these things at Harbor Freight, Radio Shack, or most hardware stores.

You will be supplied with:

• A Benito USB to serial programmer (see http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/blog/feurig/benito_7_the_next_big_thing)
• A Dorkboard kit (see http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/dorkboard)
• An introduction to the Arduino and microcontrollers in an artists setting
• Help when you need it
• The knowledge that what you built works!

For more information on the workshop, see http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/workshop/arduino/cult_induction_rev4
For more information about the Dorkboard, see http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/dorkboard
For more information about Arduino, see http://www.arduino.cc/
For more information about TechShop, see http://portlandtechshop.com
For more information about OpenTechSpace, see http://groups.google.com/group/open-tech-space or http://opentechspace.org
To find like-minded and helpful people, see http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/meetings and http://www.portlandrobotics.org/

Note that this Workshop is identical to the popular Arduino Cult Induction that has been held at PNCA.

You’ve purchased an Arudino-compatible board or completed the Audino Cult Induction, so now it’s time to make your board actually do something. This monthly workshop covers simple but useful circuits to connect to the pins and how to control those circuits using the Arduino language.

The first workshop is on October 5 from 7 to 9pm at TechShop in Beaverton. The class will be held in the upstairs classroom (the “Hack Hut“).

To sign up, go to http://www.pjrc.com/store/workshop.html

Cost of each workshop is $10. You will also need to have:

• an Arduino-compatible microcontroller board, such as the Dorkboard from the Arduino Cult Induction (with the pins installed so you can use it in a solderless breadboard), a Teensy, etc.
• a USB cable for your board
• a solderless breadboard

You can purchase a complete kit that includes all these (Teensy, breadboard, USB cable, plus the first workshop), for $40 from the same site. What a deal!

You should also bring a notebook computer with the Arduino software installed, or come a half-hour early and we will help you install the software on your computer. Finally, bring wire strippers/cutters and some wire. We will have some multimeters, but feel free to bring your own.

If you have any questions, email Paul Stoffregen – paul@pjrc.com

It will also be used for the new mobile application lab that we are just starting to put together to help people build applications for mobile phones. If you would like to help with that, contact John Roberts at hacksoft@opentechspace.org

We have some really comfortable chairs for the new space, which were donated by Qualcomm. They also donated the whiteboards, as well as some stacking chairs that are being used in the TechShop classroom.

Here are some photos of the new space:

We need a name for the new space, and I’m thinking of calling it the “hack hut” (short for Akbar & Jeff’s Hack Hut — Where the Elite Meet to Greet, Tweet, and Complete Neat Feats).