Maker Faire Shenzhen 2016

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Here’s a somewhat long slideshow of photos from Maker Faire Shenzhen.  I decided to skip World Maker Faire (NY) this year and instead go back to China.  The trip was really short, fly 16+ hours, arrive Thursday night, attend Maker Faire Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then fly home 16+ hours on Monday.  Typhoon Haima didn’t really think that was a good plan, and decided to hit the Shenzhen area mid-day Friday.  The organizers of Maker Faire postponed the whole event to Sunday and Monday, and scrambled to take down all the outdoor structures Friday morning.  Fortunately, the typhoon wasn’t a direct hit, and while it was very windy and rainy, the area was spared a major impact.  Faire organizers reassembled the event during Saturday, and opened up on Sunday.  As for my visit, well, I’m glad I had at least one day at the Faire!  The bright side to the whole trip was that I spent quality time with some really great maker/hacker people in Shenzhen.

Introducing the EB1

Well, the EB1 has actually been around a while. It’s the brain child of Tully from Samurai Circuits. A few years back he tried to convince me to work on an inexpensive Arduino compatible platform that could be used for teaching electronics and programming, but without needing a lot of extra pieces (like a breadboard, power supply, USB cables, etc.).

EB1 Arduino Compatible Micro

EB1 Arduino Compatible Micro

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iModela PCB Milling

This post documents my journey into PCB milling.  Although all the pointers are buried here, I will post a summary of links and resources in the near future.

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Othermill

I was one of the many booth stalkers checking out the Othermill at 2013 World Maker Faire and was really intrigued by the possibility of creating PCBs without chemicals.  Sure, I’ve done my fair share of toner transfer PCB etching, but it was always somewhat of a hassle, and ferric chloride isn’t the friendliest of chemicals.  Unfortunately, I was too late to purchase an Othermill via their Kickstarter, and they weren’t taking any post-Kickstarter orders yet.  So I waited… Continue reading →