• Registered: 2014-05-30
  • Posts: 191

Topic: battery board

This is a re-vive from the old forum.
I was looking, if there is a big enought interest for the battery board only. Oerhaps from pledgers, which choose the "board only" or "desktop" variant of the crow funding.
There where 2-3 replys (IIRC) and I just ask my wife (who works in a PCB producing company) to get me some prices. (lot of ~10 and ~100, exact numbre will vary, because of producable sizes).

First step is to ask the "PCB only" price first, since the population is done externaly, so I first wanted to know, if it makes any sense after getting the PCB only price (it will be possibly quite high, because we talk about producing in small amounts in germany).

xobs stated taht an extra producing of the boards will not take place before the delivering of all crowd funding pledges and he mentioned that the design may not me finished yet. So the price will be not final, but I think a good first attampt for it anyway

So I'll be back
mclien

  • Registered: 2014-06-01
  • Posts: 2

Re: battery board

I also have interest in a battery board only offer. I didn't/don't have enough money for the laptop version. That's why i went for the desktop pledge. Besides, i don't necessarily need an SSD and the battery itself now because these are easy to come by in the future.

Perhaps there are more people that are in the same position?

3 Reply by ballanux (edited by ballanux 2014-06-02 03:16:06)

  • Registered: 2014-05-26
  • Posts: 91

Re: battery board

As I said in the old forum I also want to make a battery board.

I was thinking in ordering the boards in oshpark.com. There are some things that have to be modified in the gerbers to be able to order the boards in oshpark; they don't support negative gerbers for the power planes, so the internal layers have to be inversed. They don't allow internal slots smaller than 2.54mm and the SATA connector has two of 0.9mm so, instead, I placed a bunch of pads along the slots, this should result in the drill making the slot by successive holes instead of milling it (not sure if it will turn out OK). Also, it's not a big issue but they recommend to not have silkscreen outside the outline of the board, so I removed it (also, from the SATA connector).

The minimum order in oshpark is 3 pcbs and it cost 80$ for the three of them, which I think it's a pretty good price. IF the pcbs turn out OK, anyone could order from them. This is the oshpark render of the boards, everything seems normal:

Top:
http://i.imgur.com/eNlVsjq.png
Bottom:
http://i.imgur.com/bKQdRBE.png

And for the components, all of them are available at digikey.com, except for the inductors... for some reason digikey doesn't sell any coilcraft products, but they can be bought on farnell or mouser. The price for the components needed for two boards is about 220$ (there are some pricey components!).

Then, of course, you have to be able to compile and program the uC. Luckily I have an Olimex dev board with the same micro and I also have the programmer, so it shouldn't be an issue, but it was a long time ago when I used the STM32 and I don't have experience with ChibiOS.

So, for me, it would be fun to try to build this board myself instead of buying it done... this is pretty much the only place on the novena laptop I feel confident enough poking around! smile

  • From: Inglewood, CA
  • Registered: 2014-05-31
  • Posts: 7

Re: battery board

Wasn't there a thread on the old forum that had a link to a list of components needed to build the battery board (along with all the other boards for the project)? I'd like to see that, if anyone has it.

  • Registered: 2014-05-26
  • Posts: 91

Re: battery board

comapony wrote:

Wasn't there a thread on the old forum that had a link to a list of components needed to build the battery board (along with all the other boards for the project)? I'd like to see that, if anyone has it.

I don't think there was, but since you ask smile

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dj6aw617tz4r1 … na-bom.ods

I know there can be changes in the design from now to the release date, but I'm really temped to order the PCBs and components now, I assume that if there are any changes they shouldn't be a mayor thing...

Maybe a connector for a power button on the case was mentioned somewhere?

If I build the board, it would also be nice to be able to contribute with something, either code or testing smile

  • Registered: 2014-05-30
  • Posts: 4

Re: battery board

comapony wrote:

Wasn't there a thread on the old forum that had a link to a list of components needed to build the battery board (along with all the other boards for the project)? I'd like to see that, if anyone has it.

this link?
http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title … tery_board

  • From: Inglewood, CA
  • Registered: 2014-05-31
  • Posts: 7

Re: battery board

scott_ wrote:

this link?
http://www.kosagi.com/w/index.php?title … tery_board

ballanux wrote:

I don't think there was, but since you ask smile

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dj6aw617tz4r1 … na-bom.ods

Not quite, I remember one that had the links for buying the parts at octopart.com. Although, I think the bom file is pretty good at answering my question.

  • Registered: 2014-05-30
  • Posts: 191

Re: battery board

Update on my side. My wife checked the gerbres and said it's producable right away with that. A practical lot will be 33 (one production size of PCB fits 33 of the battery board prize). She tries to get a price for the boards this week.
Or is it even obsolete to get the priceinfo due to the work off ballanux?

  • Registered: 2014-05-26
  • Posts: 91

Re: battery board

The price I got was only for 2 boards and with digikey prices, if you want to produce 33 boards the price per board will be cheaper. It also will be cheaper if you use a different supplier.

Anyway, make sure there are 33 people interested! I'm going to make the board myself, I know it will be difficult to solder some QFN packages by hand, but I want to try smile

  • Registered: 2014-06-03
  • Posts: 17

Re: battery board

I would throw my name in the hat for two battery boards.

Thx!

  • Registered: 2014-06-11
  • Posts: 4

Re: battery board

I'd also be interested in one board....

Thanks
Kenny

  • Registered: 2014-06-12
  • Posts: 5

Re: battery board

Count me in for 2 battery boards !

  • Registered: 2014-06-12
  • Posts: 100

Re: battery board

Definitely interested in a couple myself!

  • Registered: 2014-06-03
  • Posts: 22

Re: battery board

i am of course still interested as well, at least for two

  • Registered: 2014-06-11
  • Posts: 1

Re: battery board

I'd be interested in one as well!

  • Registered: 2014-06-15
  • Posts: 146

Re: battery board

I may well be interested. I don't mind "some assembly required", but I've got some doubts on soldering QFN packages (I've got the tools, just not the experience).

That, and I don't have a JTAG adapter to program the micro with, though I suppose getting one would probably be useful down the line as well.

  • From: The Netherlands
  • Registered: 2014-06-16
  • Posts: 12

Re: battery board

I'm interested in one battery board (maybe even two) so count me in!

http://bitlog.it - uncovering secrets at the frontier of technology

GuzTech's Website

18 Reply by mclien (edited by mclien 2014-06-19 14:30:28)

  • Registered: 2014-05-30
  • Posts: 191

Re: battery board

Here is my update (sorry for the delay. There is a lot of work for my wife at the moment, but she finally found time to get a price)
At the moment this is PCB only.

There where some slightly changes to do (manly at the soldering mask to not cover the vias). Due to the fact there is really some employee advance, we now have: boards, electrical controlled to have all connections and no shortcuts. Producing one "lot" (german: "Nutzen", means the size of the raw PCB wich runs through production), from which we get a max of 33 boards, so I count 30 for sure.
And that for less than 10EURs (will depend on how much working boards the "Nutzen" will finally have.
So there are 2 questions (for me):
-should I ask the price for populated boards (which will be done externally, and be more work to investigate)
- @bunnie @xobs: will this board work or do we have to wait for the final version of it?

  • Registered: 2014-06-03
  • Posts: 22

Re: battery board

Hi mclien, thx. As in the old forum, I am still interested in 2 boards as well.

The offer for the unpopulated boards is nice. I would also take 2 populated boards, if you are going to get an offer, but I/we can also solder them ourself. For the latter option, someone (maybe I myself) should create a parts order-list at a large distributor, so everyone can just use that to instant-order the needed parts. It might be worth it to order the parts for multiple boards as well, especially if someone else is situated in Germany as I am.

cheers

  • Registered: 2014-05-30
  • Posts: 191

Re: battery board

The main problem for the next step (populated board) would be to get an BOM and a pick and place list, which I can't do myself. If somebody can offer that, I would be able to follow the next connetion to aks that price.

since I'm in germany myself, I would be in for parts also. And I was thinking about a soldering session at the 31c3...

intrest for 14 boards so far. Seems a "good for go to" me.

still I'd like to have a statement from bunnie/xobs according the final design of the board or verification that the current version will work.

  • Registered: 2014-06-03
  • Posts: 17

Re: battery board

Thanks for working on this mclien.

  • xobs
  • Administrator
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  • Registered: 2014-05-25
  • Posts: 442

Re: battery board

We're looking to make a few changes to the final board, but nothing too major.  The connector pinout will definitely be the same, and the gas gauge / charger are SBS-complient so their I2C addresses won't change.  I'm looking to add features and rework some things, maybe adding a pin for One Wire / resistance detection of a power supply.

The processor won't change, the pinout won't change, and the I2C addresses won't change.  I'm not so sure about the layout, though.  Worst case is you rework the firmware somewhat, and we're looking to distribute the Senoko battery board firmware on Novena itself, so it should be easy to rebuild!

  • panrc
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2014-06-25
  • Posts: 3

Re: battery board

Looks really awesome mclien, I'd be interested in a board when they're built.

24 Reply by adj

  • adj
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  • Registered: 2014-06-17
  • Posts: 19

Re: battery board

ChibiOS / RT development with STM32-H152 from Olimex:
http://blog.innobec.com/?p=1145
As this is the microcontroller and RT OS for the battery board
I thought it could be interesting.

  • Registered: 2014-05-30
  • Posts: 191

Re: battery board

I'd like to go for the final board. As we get the pre-work for the production done for fre in this case and my wife said it wasn't much work only some minor changes (as I remember the only removed the covering solder resitant at the vias).
So the price won't differ if we wait for the final revision of the board. Or is anyone in a hurry for the battery board?
@xobs: any timeline for the finalization of the board?

population:
seems we have no way to get a BOM and a pick and place list form the Altium sources. If anyone could extract that and provde me with it, I could try to get a good price for the population, too.