FreeEMS hardware feature wishlist (your suggestions here!)

[Fred]

JHarvey, that's you, ditch the smd footprints from the layout you have, and any weirdness thats in there, and lets get an easier option out there for people. there is enough code now for one class of engines, and soon that will be expanded to others too. Lets make it more accessible.

[Spudmn]

probably mentioned already but a non SMD board, with easier to solder components.

SMD's are not all that hard to solder. 0805 is pretty easy.

Get yourself a decent iron and some tweezers and give it a go.

[Fred]

SMD's are not all that hard to solder. 0805 is pretty easy.

Get yourself a decent iron and some tweezers and give it a go.

+1, BUT, it's not reality that matters, it's what people feel about it, and they are scared of it, and it will put people off, so we do need a TH option.

Fred.

[jharvey]

DFH is a hybrid, thru hole and SMT, so you can have someone automate it, but you can also have large components for the blind to assemble. Browse the wiki to learn more.

[Fred]

So is that to say "no chance of dehybriding it" ? If so, that's a little sad IMO. All good, though, nothing a fork and some hard work wont fix! :-)

[jharvey]

Negative, if I hear a compelling reason why it shouldn't be a hybrid, it will change. Right now it's hybrid because it offers the ability to be machine MFG (for those that want to work on the car instead of the board) and doesn't effect the abilities of hand assembly (for those that are very concerned with cost). I won't make a change just because someone requests it, I'll change it because I'm convinced it's better.

It's also easy to copy this and change the footprints, so there is a chance that someone else might dehybrid it. I'd also be willing to help with that if someone wants to clone the github files and do a conversion, but right now I see the hybrid as better, not worse. So I don't plan to change it.

[EssEss]

boo ... that thing is going to monster in size to support hybrid only from here on out. the design is only going to get bigger as more people add to it and need supporting on board hardware.

+1 on smt (actually much easier), but if pth gets it into more hands I'm all for it too. I think you'll find that the hybrid approach will actually be more expensive to mfg professionally. of course it's easier for one-off's and protos.

btw: thanks for even doing this jared! its your design and your call of course.

[jharvey]

DFH had size as a secondary design constraint. The primary was flexibility. So it was intended to be all inclusive, and make it as small as reasonably possible. I agree it's very large compared to what it can be, just look at puma, much smaller, with many more features, and puma wastes perhaps 20% of the space. The DFH stack is going to be fairly large, but also smaller than a typical desktop telephone, so not really that large. I was tempted to do Manhatten style resistors and such to help reduce the X/Y size of it, but flat style was helpful in allowing places to cross routes without via's. I think I only had something like 15 via's that weren't used as thru hole components. I see a need for both, so I vote to keep is hybrid, then spin specific version that are SMT and include specific sub circuits.

[Fred]

How about forking it yourself and doing a TH version (and yes, essess, just for adoption and the diy spirit)?

[jharvey]

Why the biff with those pads that fit between the holes for the thru hole?