A lot happened last week as our prototype PCBs began arriving.  We populated the prototype boards and verified them to be working electrically. Some boards will need a Revision B redesign for some mechanical clearances before mass production.

The following boards were tested last week, and I’m happy with the results.
FAB2010 XLR Input Module
FAB2110 Input Transformer Module

We also got to see our first “mating session!” When we hooked up the FAB2010 and FAB2110 together.  This is the first-time I’ve seen my module concept in reality and this got me excited about the future possibilities.

Will try to get one new FAB board designed this week.

Why am I running a blog?  Why am I posting development updates, when there’s no audience yet other than the accidental visitor or web spider bots?

I’m posting this blog as a way to document my journey of launching this new product/concept.  It’s a way to keep my thoughts/ideas/plans/to-do list off my head, and onto to this blog. That way, I can review what needs to be done, what has been done and how far we’ve come along. It’s also a good way to keep track of my progress, problems I’ve encountered and it’s solutions, and basically an accountability partner. It helps me focus on what’s next that needs to be done.  So yeah, even if there are no other readers or audience to this blog, it’s serving a very important purpose and a very important audience — me.

We should be getting the first sets of FAB Modules prototypes sometime by the end of this week, or early next.

Once I received the FAB Modules PCB, I’ll start populating them with parts, soldering and testing them.  I’ll try to take detailed photos of the different FABs and it’s step-by-step assembly.  Maybe there’s also a blog article there or two, on tools of the trade, DIY tips and application ideas…. if I have time this week, I’ll add more content to the site.

There’s still a lot of work to be done… like documentation, gathering the Bill of Materials, procuring parts, and writing the Application Notes, and more testing. Sometimes it seems overwhelming but I have no doubt we’ll somehow get through all this work. Continue Reading…

Bitmaps in PCB silkscreen? Who would have thunk this is possible?!!! After working in Eagle for several years now (I started back in 2007), I just learned about this capability today.

Before, I would painstakingly trace and use polygons to recreate an image or logo… and even then, the results were marginally satisfactory. It also took a lot of time and trial and error to make it look right.

Today I learned the secret is running the ULP script “Import-BMP”. In a few seconds you’re done!

Continue Reading…

I’m still trying to get used to WordPress and all it’s features. There’s a lot of improvements I want to make to the site to improve it’s navigation and usability.

I installed “Jetpack” on this site and enabled the MOBILE WEB feature. I think the website now looks good and very readable even when viewed on a small mobile phone screen.

Check it out on your mobile phone! www.fabmodules.com  (of course, you know that!)

Continue Reading…