Partycat Revision 4

General lounge Commercial Ops
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I haven’t had a chance to check on the state of the solder paste but I hear it is gud. Thanks mark for making a stencil.

Edit: I’ve also printed out a few sets of the instructions and will bring some RGB LEDs for testing out final cats.
Also i have some super fine wire solder for all you hand-soldering peeps. :smiley:

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@lukecyca My party cat board vanished around the laser printer when I was cutting the stencil. Do you have another board I can purchase? I used one of Adams

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Party Cat build 1 night was excellent. Thanks @lukecyca for a really great board kit. :smiley:

Attendees: Mark, Bob, Adam, Janet, Chad,

  • we all finished boards (Adam just needs an ESP for his board)
  • mix of oven and hand soldering
  • we lost that one board under the laser - if you see it please put it in the dropbox
  • oven has been recalibrated (thanks Bob oven maker wizard)
  • worked well only a couple of tombstones that were fixed by hand
  • Mark cut a mylar stencil on the laser which was great (we’ll likely refine it as we had to trace a PNG of the mask to get an SVG file)
  • the build is a great board
  • smallest components can be soldered by hand
  • Mark also found a roll of 10K 603 resistors if people want to hand solder those instead, or if you accidentally inhale a tiny 103 :smiley:
  • the board is definitely great to hand solder and can be done entirely by hand
  • did not get to programming, but will do next thursday
  • need new solder paste which I will pick up at Lee’s for next week
  • also we need more cat t-shirts people!

See you next Thursday for Party Cat Night II everyone!

Will upload pics shortly.

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I’d love to purchase some “When Cats Hack” t-shirts if they were available…

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Great work everyone! Sorry again that I couldn’t be there last night. I will try be there next Thursday to help with programming.

About a Stencil

Kicad can export the layers as SVG, so I went ahead and made an SVG of just the soldermask layer. Keep in mind that some of these pads are for through-hole components, or are unused/optional. I would suggest editing this SVG to only include the SMD pads. I don’t have an SVG-editor on my computer at the moment. If someone wants to do the above (and make it a DXF) and submit a pull request, I would be grateful!

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Awesome thanks @lukecyca and no worries! Thanks for the SVG. I’ll edit to remove the through-hole and also the ESP pads.

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@lukecyca. I believe what you want to export is the Solder Paste Layer and not the Solder Mask Layer.

" F.Mask will be the solder mask layer, this is the part of the circuit where you want to peel back the solder mask to expose pads so you can solder to the copper. This will include all surface mount pads, but it will also include through hole pads and vias.

The F.Paste layer is meant for manufacturing stencils. It will only include surface mount pads and exclude through holes and vias. However, the pads will normally be slightly undersized to reduce the amount of paste being reflowed. Too much solder paste can lead to bridging or tombstoning of components."

Mark

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Thanks! I’ve generated this layer as a DXF and removed the previous SVG. Kicad only included the appropriate pads, so I think this is ready to laser cut.

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A few pics from party cat build night. I’ll try to take more this Thursday at Part Cat Night II. C’mon down.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/m6jC5DaysRDVuzR39

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Updated solder stencil has been laser cut and is currently in the dropbox with the kits if anyone wants to use it.

PartyCatStencil%20-%201
PartyCatStencil%20-%201722×800 517 KB

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Hey is that partycat programming cord still around? I am at the space tonight and remembered to bring my board

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I’ll be in tonight too, and will bring the programming cable.

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any of these cool cat kits still kicking around?..would you be able to ship a couple to the koots? will pay shipping of course, thanks for sharing bringing the party with these lil cats…big ups to the Open Source Hardware!

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Luke, if you are doing another run of them soon, please let me know; I might have someone interested in more than 1

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Hey guys, I’m pretty sure I have 3 or 4 kits left, but I’m fresh out of ESP8266 modules. I can order more but due to the holiday in China right now, it could take a while.

@Mike_Savage PM me if you’d like the kits without the ESP chip, or whether you want them with the chip and are willing to wait a month.

@mike likewise, let me know. I will do another run of boards if there is interest.

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I’m not in a rush; just let me know a little before your next natural run and I’ll see if I can inflate your order a bit :slight_smile:

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