Dave's uCurrent Adapter

[brims]

I'm sorry if this has been brought up before, I haven't been able to find it. I really like the idea of the uCurrent adapter. I bought the issue of the Australian magazine (don't recall the name) that Dave wrote an article about the device to get all the information; that was before he freely gave it away.

Anyways, I'd love to try my hand at building one, my only issue is the PCB. I have no idea what I'm doing in regards to designing a PCB to send off to a manufacturer. I took the pictures of the PCB he gave and put them in an image editing program to try and come up with a template, but who knows if I could get a board made from that. Has Dave ever given the PCB template in any format, or does anyone else have one.

I'd buy an adapter, but I'd really rather build it myself. Maybe I'll build one if I can get the PCB layout and buy one. Thanks in advace.

[TheDirty]

If you want to try the easy way out, you can download the ExpressPCB program which is a simplified PCB design program, but it can only be used with ExpressPCB (the manufacturer).

Otherwise I would highly suggest downloading the Eagle freeware version, going through all the tutorials and create the schematic and board in it.  There are tutorials on how to make Gerber files for manufacturing out of Eagle as well.  It's a steep learning curve, but schematic capture and PCB layout is fundamental you're going to need if you want to move forward with more projects.

[TheDirty]

There are plenty of basic tutorials on Eagle you can use that you can google yourself.  I think the Youtube ones can be pretty good.

Here's some that are specifically meant for when you are ready to send it in for manufacturing:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorial_info.php?tutorials_id=115
http://hackaday.com/2009/01/15/how-to-prepare-your-eagle-designs-for-manufacture/
http://colinkarpfinger.com/blog/2010/ordering-pcbs-designed-with-eagle/

[Time]

No one ever mentions c.adence lay.out on here... I use c.adence lay.out... i like it alot

[TheDirty]

Is it free?

Eagle is the standard for open source hardware so there are a lot of tutorials, libraries, and available designs for it.  It's also free for two layer/limited board size.  For somebody doing this for a hobby, it's pretty much the de facto standard.

[brims]

Thanks. I'll look into Eagle and see what I can do.

[TheDirty]

Looks like I left it out of the original message, but the learning curve is steep.  I don't want to give the impression that you are going to be up and running quickly.

[sanman]

I would also be interested if anyone has already done the layout and could post/send the file.. for any of the companies. This would save me a lot of time.

Thanks!

[dengorius]

Well you can use the original circuit overlay from Dave

http://alternatezone.com/electronics/ucurrent/uCurrent-Overlay.gif

That makes the pcb design almost effortless

[terabyte]

Has anybody asked Dave for the Eagle files?  I recently emailed him and he said he was not going to be selling the uCurrent anymore as there was no demand for them.  Heck I'll shoot him an email and ask.

[EEVblog]

I do not have Eagle files, the project was done in Altium Designer.
I'll probably get around to open sourcing it one day, but really, it's a trivial circuit, easy to lay out yourself any way you want.

Dave.

[bombledmonk]

I'm bringing this back from the dead out of curiosity.  Since you aren't making the uCurrent are you considering a release of the gerber and production files to make it easy for people who want to get their hands on one?

[sacherjj]

The one problem with the gerbers directly is that I haven't been able to find a source for the hobby box that Dave used.  I have all the parts coming from Digikey, other than the few I sampled from Maxim.    I'll be making a Eagle for the uCurrent, but I will require Dave's blessing (and a working proto using that board) before I would make that public.

Can't promise a time frame, as I'm finishing my ATMega driven current sink and current limiter power supply first.  And the honey do list is quite long...

[bombledmonk]

While not exactly the same, I think this is one is pretty close in dimensions.  I'm not quite sure which Jiffy box he was using.
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=HM361-ND

[sacherjj]

I'm thinking about designing for this one: http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/TB-1/PLASTIC-BOX//1.html

I have a few of them around and they are the best priced option out there.  I always seem to be ordering something fun from them anyway.