{"id":182,"date":"2013-09-16T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.modelb.biz\/?p=182"},"modified":"2016-11-22T01:47:34","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T01:47:34","slug":"bill-of-materials-drafted-lets-order-some-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.modelb.biz\/bill-of-materials-drafted-lets-order-some-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill of Materials drafted, let’s order some parts"},"content":{"rendered":"
So, after completing the v0.2 Detailed Design<\/a> I turned my attention to the BOM<\/a>. Since this is still development prototype, I wanted to source components which can be bread boarded using a prototype shield and mini-breadboard. The previous version of the *Holoseat* was built using this approach, and I find it creates a usable, near finished product while maintaining the flexibility of bench top breadboarding. And, since my soldering skills leave something to be desired, I wanted to find a pre-assembled prototype shield (which, unfortunately ruled out Adafruit’s Prototype Shield<\/a>).<\/p>\n Since I am an Amazon Prime member, I often turn to Amazon for my initial search for almost everything. And, it should come as no surprise that there are plenty of Arduino related products on Amazon. As I was searching for prototype shields, I quickly came across this one<\/a> (see image below) from SainSmart<\/a>. It looked like a pretty good deal. It’s a good price and includes jumper wires for use with the breadboard.<\/p>\n As I wrapped up the BOM and I continued looking around Amazon, I came across this Intro to Arduino Kit<\/a> which includes a Leonardo board (see the Detailed Design<\/a> for info on why we are moving to the Leonardo). Now this was very tempting. It includes pretty much everything from the BOM<\/a> plus extra stuff for later experimentation, and at a nearly $20 savings over ordering components individually. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. But, I am thorough shopper, and truth be told I was not familiar with SainSmart. So, I decided to do some Googling to make sure this was really as good a deal as it seems. Boy am I glad I did.<\/p>\n At first, I didn’t find much info one way or another. There were a couple of somewhat negative forum posts which I didn’t find very helpful on their own. But then I came across this thread<\/a> on Reddit. It looks like SainSmart is not being a good OSHW citizen (note, I have nothing against cloners, but I do have a problem with people not following license and trademark requirements, let alone changing components without proper documentation). Combined with the few bits I could gather from the other forum posts, I just cannot justify going with SainSmart for any components until I hear better news about their behavior with regards to OSHW.<\/p>\n So, back to Amazon and Google I went looking for a prototype shield. The good news is the Arduino team has an assembled shield which Amazon sells. Plus, there is a mini-breadboard at Amazon which looks like it should fit on the shield. A few quick adjustments to the Bill of Materials, and it was done. Now it’s time to order parts. Woot!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, after completing the v0.2 Detailed Design I turned my attention to the BOM. Since this is still development prototype, I wanted to source components which can be bread boarded using a prototype shield and mini-breadboard. The previous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[15,16,13,14],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n<\/p>\n