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A machine that might change how small businesses and hobbyists manufacture circuit boards has just reached its Kickstarter goals in a matter of minutes:
The Voltera V-One circuit printer, one of our favorite finds at CES this year, just launched its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter — and hit $100,000 in 35 minutes.
The Voltera system provides multiple capabilities: It will print the traces for your prototype circuit board (at 8mil space and trace), dispense solder paste to allow you to place SMD components on professionally manufactured boards, and provide heat for reflowing those electronics onto boards. And it prints multiple layers with a transparent ink.
The extruders on the system pop on and off with magnetic clasps, allowing for easy transitions between materials.
Initially priced at $1499, it is perhaps beyond the reach of many home constructors, but I expect that prices will fall in time and then we can say goodbye to the chemicals and UV lights.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday July 05 2015, @02:49AM
I spent $4500.00 on my linux mint box. All I ever do is view the digital media of ill repute on its amcc 3ware 9690SA hardware RAID.
What this gadget enables, among other things, is for hobbiests to make PCI cards for modern boxen. That hasnt really been feasible sincevISA went out of style.
I would personally be happy to spend that much on an oscilloscope.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by tftp on Sunday July 05 2015, @03:56AM
What this gadget enables, among other things, is for hobbiests to make PCI cards for modern boxen.
It won't be useful for that purpose. PCIe edge connector (gold fingers) requires hard gold plating - which, in turn, depends on highly poisonous chemicals that an individual cannot even buy (cyanides.) Don't also forget contour milling of FR4 - which requires mills harder than steel. Among other problems: the differential traces to PCIe (100 Ohm) are sometimes narrower than 8 mil; the vias are sometimes 10 mil or less (requiring laser drilling.) A hobbyist would be much better off ordering his boards from a PCB manufacturer that already has all that. I haven't met even many businesses who'd benefit from making PCBs in-house. A hobbyist would be in an even worse position, as he needs too few boards per month to justify the cost of equipment.
But if I may ask a larger question... what does PCIe give you that USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) doesn't? I can understand if you are making a new video card or a new RAID controller. Or if you need 1 µs latency of interrupts. But for everything else there is Cypress FX3. USB 3.0 is hotpluggable, portable, hardware-independent, scalable down to low speed USB... what's not to like? What data source/sink monster are you envisioning that you need PCIe? And besides... if you are building such a monster, the cost of the board is the least of your concerns.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Sunday July 05 2015, @04:19AM
An internal form factor and 75W of power.
(Also, he said PCI, not PCIe... it may be legacy but it's more than enough bandwidth for most hobbyist use.)
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday July 05 2015, @04:35AM
An internal form factor and 75W of power.
I have already built my share of PCI boards, and it's not a very pleasant experience. PCI is a relic of the past; how many new m/boards even have it, except a single legacy, 32 bit / 33 MHz slot? Everything is PCIe today because it just makes so much more sense. Internal placement and PCI are nothing but liabilities today, because your device can be plugged only into an older kind of a box, a tower probably. Why to develop something that is already obsolete? PCI is terribly slow; it may be wide, adding joy to the layout process, but the clock is 66 MHz at best.
With regard to 75W ... how, pray tell, you are planning to cool that? This is a serious problem; delivery of power is easier than removal of waste heat. At that level of complexity the issue of the PCB is nonexistent, as you are busy with FloWorks or something that is even more expensive. A typical number for CPCI racks with aggressive, high volume air cooling does not exceed 30-40W per slot. Cooling in an uncontrolled PC enclosure is going to be much worse. None of that makes sense. A PCI card can be only used in a desktop, and desktops are a dying breed.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05 2015, @08:29AM
PCI makes *MUCH MORE* sense than PCIe. Besides supporting all those legacy systems as you aptly put it (which also includes 98 percent of PPC macs, sparc systems, itanium, PA-RISC, etc.) There are pciex1 to pci adapters for supporting newer systems, and oftentimes it is as cheap or cheaper to buy one of those adapters than to do a PCIex1 equivalent of a PCI card (there are exceptions, ymmv, etc.)
PCIe has ended up in the expected, but unpleasant situation where the majority of PCIe ports are useless due to shortsightedness on the consumer-grade motherboard designer's parts. While x1 data is acceptable, x1 physical slots are not since x2+ pinned cards are incapable of fitting in the slots without physical modifications or adapters which interfere with height standards for the majority of cards. While many people can tolerate the performance hit, most cannot tolerate sacrificing the sole PCIe x16 or x4 (x16 physical) slot from its graphics cards duties to its duties as a SATA/USB3.1/Ethernet expansion. The result of this is PCI cards still being cheap (since they work on almost everything), and PCIe cards being expensive and slow (since the majority of x1 cards are more affordably replaced with a new motherboard integrating their features), and the cards providing beneficial features requiring either PCI slots, if cheap or low bandwidth, or cards costing as much as the motherboard which utilize higher bandwidth PCIe connections, usually standardized on x4 or x8 and physically incompatible with the multiple x1 ports on the average consumer motherboard.
Additionally the commonly used PCI standards should be out of or shortly exiting patent protection, something which PCIe won't do for at least another 5-10 years.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday July 05 2015, @10:30PM
Additionally the commonly used PCI standards should be out of or shortly exiting patent protection, something which PCIe won't do for at least another 5-10 years.
Perhaps you need to pay royalties if you make your own PCI chipset - then you need to be a member of PCI-SIG. But I can't imagine why you'd need to pay, and for what, if you are merely connecting to an existing bus. Apple used to charge for each FireWire port, and that killed FireWire.
PCIe endpoints are available in Xilinx devices; for example [xilinx.com]:
Xilinx provides a 7 Series FPGA solution for PCI Express® (PCIe) to configure the 7 Series FPGA Integrated Block for PCIe and includes additional logic to create a complete solution for PCIe. This Xilinx Block Wrapper for PCIe simplifies the design process and reduces time-to-market. Many easy-to-use features and optimal configuration for Endpoint and Root Port applications are available at no additional cost.
If you are not interested in an FPGA, there are a few silicon vendors that will sell you a PCIe endpoint that is coupled with some useful function. The same is available for PCI, but those interfaces are quickly moving into the "obsolete" pile - and you do not want to depend on a product that has a last time buy date. Also do not underestimate the added costs of routing about 40 additional traces of controlled length (PCI/32), as opposed to three differential pairs of any length (PCIe x1.) A 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI slot gives you an equivalent of 1 Gbps, but a single PCIe 1.1 lane gives you 2.5 Gbps. A single USB 3.x port gives you 5 Gbps, and it is externally connectable and scalable.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday July 06 2015, @05:43PM
Easy way to answer that -- let's check Newegg! If we ignore the small form factor motherboards which would obviously skip it due to size constraints, we have...
65 total ATX motherboards
23 with 1 PCI slot
39 with 2 PCI slots
7 with 3 PCI slots
So...something is apparently wrong with their filters as we have four more boards with PCI slots than total boards. But it seems *all* the boards have at least one PCI slot, and the vast majority have multiple.
I'm building a new rig soon, and the motherboard I'm currently considering (not because of the PCI slots, as I don't plan to use any) actually has three (ASUS A88X-Plus.)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday July 05 2015, @06:28AM
blue, red and yellow dyes.
I once had the idea that pure hydrogen cyanide would be a fine perfume I could give to my sister. I took it to school, handed it to my friend he sniffed it then dropped it on the floor.
The wise thing would have been to pull the fire alarm but i told him to run while I cleaned it up myself.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]