I recently finished making my own Maple LED Clock. It only took five tries! Check out all the details here!
Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category
Well, I’ve been playing around a lot lately with various techniques to mechanically etch PCBs, and I think I’ve finally got a good method. I’ve documented it here on my site for all to enjoy.
Here’s an example of a small board I created using my CNC router. It’s just a small test board for TI’s excellent TLC5925 LED driver IC, but it demonstrates the kind of results I’m getting with my latest fabrication methods.
Well, I made some more tweaks to my CNC Router setup over the weekend. The most exciting addition is the complete integration of my new MPG2 Jog Pendant! Some of the EMC2 HAL integration work took a little thinking, so I made a new MPG2 Jog Pendant page to get other similarly inclined EMC2 users up and running with all 4 axes. Now, if I could only get my butt in gear and finish the shop, I’d be set!
As a big fan of SparkFun.com, I was greatly upset when I found out that Sparc International sent them a nasty cease and desist letter. For those of you not familiar with SparkFun.com, they’re a really cool company in Colorado that produces all kinds of electronic goodness for electronic tinkerers like me. I’ve used their products on a lot of my projects, including their handy serial LCD on my Drag Racing Christmas Tree project, and their various ZigBee accessories on my Mailbox Monitor project, to name a few.
The situation made me upset enough to write the following letter. I just hate seeing cool companies like SparkFun getting bullied by the big guys.
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To whom it may concern,
As a dedicated fan and advocate of both Sun and SparkFun.com, I was recently saddened by learning of the C&D letter sent to SparkFun on behalf of Sparc International. I make my living programming in Java, (much of my code even runs on Sparc-based servers), and I have great respect for the Sun family of companies in general. Away from work, I blow off steam designing and working with embedded systems and hardware, often supplemented with the great products SparkFun produces. I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone would confuse Sparc International and SparkFun.com. Count me among those in the “relevent purchasing groups” completely baffled at the suggestion that I would ever confuse Sparc International and SparkFun.com. Beyond the fact you both like semiconductors, you’re nothing alike, and you needn’t fear I’ll confuse the two of you merely because you both use the ultra-common phonetic “Spark” as a component in your respective trademarks.
Sparc produces server hardware.
SparkFun facilitates embedded systems hobbyists and engineers by providing easy to integrate components and tools to further embedded projects.
There is no overlap, and certainly no confusion!
Please live and let live. Please don’t replace my current image of Sparc International as “cool member of the Sun family of companies” with that of “another trademark bully to avoid and urge others to avoid”.
Most sincerely,
Brad Hanken,
proud customer of both of your companies
