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425 discussions

OSHCamp and Wuthering Bytes 2016.
by Andrew Back 14 Apr '16

14 Apr '16

Hi All, I think I previously mentioned that Open Source Hardware Camp will this year take place over the weekend of 3rd and 5th September. Preceded on the Friday by Wuthering Bytes "Festival Day" and followed by the BCS Open Source Specialist Group event, Open for Business. More info at: http://wutheringbytes.com/news/2016/2016-programme-and-cfp Just a heads-up that, if you're thinking of heading along and would like to stay at the hostel — which is adjoined to this year's venue — it's worth booking sooner rather than later. OSHCamp CFP to follow soon. Cheers, Andrew

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Talk for "chip design" themed meeting, Thurs 19th May.
by Andrew Back 30 Mar '16

30 Mar '16

Hi All, The theme for the meeting on the evening of Thursday 19th May will be chip/digital design/FPGA. We already have two talks confirmed and are looking for a third. Perhaps someone: * could give a talk on MyHDL or one of the other gentler on-ramps? * has some experiences to share with respect to learning a HDL and/or using a FPGAs in projects? * has designed their own CPU from scratch, implemented in FPGA or discrete logic? * wrote a simulator for a classic CPU architecture? Talk proposals and suggestions for speakers would be most helpful! Cheers, Andrew

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Genuino/Arduino Day at South London Makerspace 2nd April - call for participants
by Dermot Jones 27 Mar '16

27 Mar '16

Hi All, We're opening our doors for World Genuino Day on Saturday, we'll be doing a few 'Arduino for Beginners' workshops, and a range of members projects on display, but are looking to spice it up with more 'show & tell' projects, and potentially a talk or two. https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org/t/genuino-day-arduino-day-2nd-a… It's pretty informal: everyone is welcome to just turn up and get stuck in, but if you'd like some table space pre-booked to demo a great project or want to give a talk or present a workshop then get in contact. Best, Dermot

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OSHUG #47 — Open Source Where You Least Expect It, Thursday 21st April.
by Andrew Back 22 Mar '16

22 Mar '16

Hello, Registration is now open for the April meeting, details of which can be found below. Cheers, Andrew // Event #47 — Open Source Where You Least Expect It On the 21 April 2016, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/47 At the forty-seventh meeting we will take a look at the use of open source hardware and software in less obvious places. — Ownership and Gift; Open Source and God; How a Vicar values Open Source Do we really own anything, or is it a gift? When we try to claim ownership how does that affect our attitude and our freedom? Does my choice of software really have a spiritual dimension? How can I give something back? These are all questions which arise for an ex-compiler-writing Vicar who wants software which does the job at hand but also wants to live with integrity and Christian values. In his talk Rev Peter Salisbury explores these questions through examples of the way his church uses Open Source software and hardware. Peter Salisbury was an electronics geek in his teens just as logic chips first hit the Maplin catalogue. From building computers in a cupboard he went to study Computation at UMIST, graduating in 1980. He worked in system tools with Burroughs Machines, then moved to language design and compiler writing for a Project Management company. In 1989 he moved to Salisbury to study theology in preparation for becoming a vicar. He was ordained in 1992 and is currently Vicar of Lymington on the south coast near Southampton. He has never really forgotten he's a geek. — Open hardware for open science Is science open source and should it be? This talk will look at the current state of open software and hardware in scientific practice. Example open hardware projects from the worlds of biology, astronomy and computer science will be presented. Sarah Mount is a Research Associate on the Efficient Editing of Homogeneous Programs (Editors4) project. Previously, she was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton, and before that she held a number of positions at Coventry University. — Hacking the atmosphere The AirPi is an open source board he designed for measuring and recording air pollution and weather information. Despite its innocuous goal, that board has ended up in some fairly weird situations — come along to find out where! Tom Hartley is a student at Imperial College, currently sitting on the fence between software and hardware. Prompted by a mysterious fascination with the Raspberry Pi that lives on to this day, he developed the AirPi 2 years ago as part of a competition and went on to sell over 1,000 kits to people who care about the air they breathe. A devotee of open source, the code he writes and the boards he designs are all available freely online. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt. //

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OSHWA certification mark: call for ideas
by Graham Whaley 20 Mar '16

20 Mar '16

I'm guessing many of you on this list have already seen this, but just in case you've not I thought it might be of interest: http://www.oshwa.org/2016/03/17/open-hardware-certification-mark-call-for-i… Graham

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Boldport Club, PCBmodE, and OSHW
by Saar Drimer 24 Feb '16

24 Feb '16

Hello OSHUG friends, Recently I've launched a new service that I'm really excited about. It's called the Boldport Club. When you become a member you get a monthly delivery of 'electronics goodness' projects that we designed https://boldport.cratejoy.com Most of you know that I specialise in circuits that emphasize usability and that have unique visuals. I do this with PCBmodE, an open source software that I've written specifically for this purpose http://pcbmode.com Unless a client is unwilling, all of the boards that I design are also open source. This means that by signing up to the Boldport Club, you're not only getting unique items, you are also supporting the further development of PCBmodE. If Jeremy hasn't already shown it to you (HA!), this is a board that he commissioned from Boldport last year through Embecosm http://boldport.com/seahorse Another project I'm quite proud of is Haute Circuits, which appeared in the December issue of Marie Claire magazine US http://boldport.com/hautecircuits If you sign up to the Boldport Club or don't, please provide me with feedback so that I can learn how to go about it better. Many thanks and have a great week ahead, Saar. Dr Saar Drimer Electronics craftsman and founder at Boldport +44(0)7779606045 http://bolsport.com

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OSHUG #46 — Embedded Platforms, Thursday 17th March.
by Andrew Back 19 Feb '16

19 Feb '16

Hello, Registration is now open for the March meeting, details of which can be found below. Cheers, Andrew // Event #46 — Embedded Platforms (BSD, OpenWRT, Plan 9 & Inferno) On the 17 March 2016, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/46 The forty-sixth OSHUG meeting will take a look at embedded platforms, with talks on the BSD family of operating systems, Linux and OpenWRT, and Plan 9 and Inferno in distributed systems. — The BSD Family of Operating Systems A familiar environment for your VAX, PIC32 or RISC-V ISA and many other platforms. The Berkeley Software Distribution started out as a patch set to AT&T UNIX in the 70's and grew to a complete Operating Systems. Today several projects continue to develop variant operating systems based on the work originally started by the Computer Science Research Group, each with a different area of focus. This presentation will cover some of the benefits these operating systems can offer to aid the workflow of a hardware project. Sevan Janiyan is founder of Venture 37, which provides system administration & consultancy services. As a fan of operating systems and computers with different CPU architectures, in his spare time he maintains builds of open source software on a variety of systems featuring PowerPC, SPARC and armv7l CPUs. He hopes to own a NeXTcube & OMRON LUNA-88K2 one day. — Developing Linux based products in the connected devices ecosystem -- The OpenWRT Approach Linux is accepted as a standard component of the Internet of Things domain. With the abundance of development platforms and the abhorrent state of vendor provided SDKs, getting started with and more importantly the maintenance of Linux powered devices is pretty much a dark art these days. This talk focuses on the mass market hardware platforms of interest to folks building the Next Great IoT ProductTM and how the development could be sped up with OpenWRT. To supplement the topic of product development, a couple of noteworthy System-on-Chip devices and how they could be adopted will also be discussed. Ivan Iacono is an Embedded Systems Engineer interested in the development of Linux based products and the surrounding periphery of embedded devices, cloud and the overall architecture of connected systems. He is the Firmware Wrangler at Den Automation. Omer Kilic is an Embedded Systems Engineer who likes tinkering with small computers of all shapes and sizes. He works at the various intersections of hardware and software engineering practices, product development and manufacturing. He is the Chief Hacker at Den Automation. — Embedded devices are often now part of a distributed system: my Pebble watch is linked to my Nexus phone, which is coupled to Google. Plan 9 and Inferno are two distributed systems originally developed by the Bell Labs research centre that produced Unix. They allow a single large system to be composed from smaller cooperating systems performing specific tasks. (In other areas they illustrate an alternative time line that diverged from strict adherence to Unix's details of the 1970's.) Distributed systems infrastructure often focuses on algorithmic aspects, such as Paxos, and the operating system is largely irrelevant when it is not merely obstructive. Plan 9 and Inferno provide structural support for distribution, at the operating system level. Their defining novelty is the representation of all distributable resources as hierarchical name spaces, which can be composed in useful ways, and simplify design, development, testing and integration. This talk will give a brief summary of both systems, then begin to name names, including their use in embedded appliances in distributed systems. Dr Charles Forsyth is a founder and Technical Director of Vita Nuova, which specialises in systems software and distributed systems. He is interested in compilers, operating systems, networking (protocols and services), security, and distributed systems and algorithms. He specialises in the design and implementation of systems software, from low-level drivers through compilers to whole operating systems. He has published papers on operating systems, Ada compilation, worst-case execution analysers for safety-critical applications, “resources as files”, and the development of computational grids. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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Open Energy Tools & Interoperability : Kite Airborne Wind Energy Results
by Rod Read 31 Jan '16

31 Jan '16

Hi oshug, Here are some links to my open hardware Airborne Wind Energy project results. My report on Kite Networks for Harvesting Wind Energy <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0qQxFlXu7t-RGpqRk1ZYXNISkU> Files for making a ring kite turbine <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0qQxFlXu7t-SHBvNUdQQVBRN00> part 1 more on instructables, wevolver, hackaday and youtube. All interaction and welcome on this project. Gutted I likely can't attend the London BCS event on Open Energy Tools & Interoperability this Feb. Rod Read Windswept and Interesting Limited 15a Aiginis Isle of Lewis UK HS2 0PB 07899057227 01851 870878 https://twitter.com/rodread http://www.youtube.com/c/RodRead http://windswept-and-interesting.co.uk

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Re: [oshug] OSHUG #45 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability.
by Andrew Back 30 Jan '16

30 Jan '16

As has been pointed out, the title should have been OSHUG #45 :o) Also, we will have a fourth talk: — OpenEnergyMonitor 5 years on OpenEnergyMonitor is a project to develop open-source tools to help us relate to our use of energy, our energy systems and the challenge of sustainable energy. This short talk will provide an overview of what has been achieved so far, what has been learnt and outline the project roadmap for the future. Topics will include: running an open-hardware business, local manufacture and electronic carbon footprinting and sustainability. Glyn Hudson is co-founder and full-time developer of the OpenEnergyMonitor project. // Cheers, Andrew On 29 January 2016 at 11:43, Andrew Back <arback(a)computer.org> wrote: > Hello, > > Registration is now open for the February meeting — and preceding hack > day! — details of which can be found below. > > Cheers, > > Andrew > > // > > Event #45 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability (Open Inverter, > OpenTRV, Heat Pump Monitoring) > > On the 18 February 2016, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The > Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. > > Registration: http://oshug.org/event/45 > > For the forty-fifth meeting we will return to a topic which has been a > recurring theme and of much interest at previous meetings, open energy > platforms. There will be talks on Open Inverter, OpenTRV and heat pump > monitoring, with a focus also on interoperability. The evening meeting > will also be preceded by an interoperability hack day for project > contributors. > > — Low power DC conversion using open source hardware > > The Open Inverter is a micro inverter designed to produce an AC power > output of up to 250 VA. It uses modular, open source PCB designs for > both it's controller and power boards — and is extendible to larger > power outputs or for other power electronics projects, such as battery > charging, DC ring mains and DC power transformation using buck-boost > DC/DC converters. > > Open Inverter will provide an AC output from a single 250W > photovoltaic panel, micro-hydro turbine. It also has applications in > electric bike charging and DC power storage. The key PCBs are > currently at either the layout or manufacture stage. The > microcontroller board features an RFM69 low power wireless, making it > compatible with the Open Energy Monitor ecosystem. > > Ken Boak started his professional career at BBC Research Department in > 1986 working on digital signal processing systems for HDTV and > subsequently over 30 years, a mix of 10 other technology companies, > both UK and US based, in the fields of instrumentation, automation, > telemetry telecomms. > > Ken has been interested in energy monitoring since the early 1990s, > when he constructed a 4 seater electric car, and provided rudimentary > energy analysis of the battery charge and discharge cycles. In 1998 he > joined a South London company and designed a low power wireless, > monitor device for automatic, remote gas and electricity meter > reading. > > In 2009 Ken worked on the Onzo Energy Monitoring Kit, a commercial > device that was ultimately distributed to Southern Electric customers. > Then in 2010 he produced a series of educational devices to teach > engineering undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic energy > systems. > > Ken has continued his interests in energy monitoring, working > collaboratively with Megni on the OpenEnergyMonitor project, the open > Inverter Project and also for All Power Labs in Berkeley, California, > where he was involved in power monitoring of wood gasifier generator > sets. He tries to live a low impact lifestyle in a modest Edwardian > house in Surrey, with a little help from modern electronics. > > — OpenTRV > > OpenTRV have a vision to make carbon cutting and energy saving easy > and cheap for everyone, with a mission to take 8% out of the EU’s > carbon emissions and in the order of £300 out of a typical UK home’s > heating bill every year. Achieving this using a device that doesn’t > need an instruction manual or a smartphone to operate. > > OpenTRV aim to eventually be managing 400 million home radiators > across Europe. Their journey so far has taken them from “scratching an > itch” with open source, to injection moulded plastics being made in > Shenzhen, and attempting to build a growth business around their > ideas, that could really make a difference to carbon and climate, > while improving householder comfort and health. > > As part of their aim to make the world a better place, OpenTRV will > keep as much as possible of their work in the public eye and liberally > licensed, while interoperating with existing equipment and protocols > so that there is no need to reinvent the wheel and the end user > doesn’t get “locked in”. To that end, interoperability with > OpenergyMonitor and OpenHAB are high on their wish list! > > Damon Hart-Davis is lead on the OpenTRV open source project created > following his 2012 presentation to DECC's smart heating workshop. He > has freelanced in technology for over 30 years, delivering > mission-critical products from design to BAU in the City for more than > 20 of those, and has founded and been involved in several start-ups > over that time with his creations seen on TV, the Web, and his > pioneering Internet Service Provider helping crack open that market > more than 20 years ago. A previous virtual/on-line credit-card company > start-up that he co-founded as CTO, Ixaris, turns over ~£10m. > > Mark Hill spent 15 years in the City after a solid grounding in IT at > the chip level at the microprocessor manufacturer Inmos, designing and > delivering highly complex systems. Project management, direction and > governance are all part of his toolkit. He now speaks regularly about > innovation, collaboration and IoT. Recently he founded a mobile phone > software start-up and is now OpenTRV Ltd's co-founder. > > — Heat pumps and heat pump monitoring > > Heat pumps are a key part of zero carbon energy plans, making it > possible to provide heating from renewable energy in an efficient way. > Heat pumps have a rocky track record in the UK and there are numerous > stories of poorly performing systems, giving householders unexpectedly > high electricity bills. However, there are also many systems that have > been designed and installed well that do work effectively. > > This talk will give an example of using open source hardware and > software tools to monitor and evaluate the performance of heat pumps, > using the speaker's own air source heat pump system at home as a case > study. > > Trystan Lea is co-founder and core developer on the OpenEnergyMonitor > project. He is also testing out through his own life how it is > possible to provide for our energy needs from sustainable sources, > while using and developing open source energy modelling and monitoring > tools, to understand and evaluate what is possible and how we might > better design zero carbon energy systems. Trystan is currently testing > heat pump heating, along with electric vehicle and solar photovoltaic > at home. > > — Interoperability Hack Day > > The 18th February meeting will be preceded by a hack day, running from > 09:00-17:00 and also hosted at the BCS offices in Covent Garden. This > will aim to to foster collaboration between open energy platform > projects, in support of a greater interoperability. > > There is a separate registration page for this part of the day, but > please note that participants are expected to have experience of > developing for a relevant platform, such as OpenEnergyMonitor, > OpenHAB, OpenTRV, or some other open source energy or home automation > etc. system. As such hose without suitable experience would not > benefit from attending. > > https://events.bcs.org/book/1886/ > > Please note that the link at the top of the page should be used for > registering for the evening talks. > > Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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OSHUG #44 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability.
by Andrew Back 29 Jan '16

29 Jan '16

Hello, Registration is now open for the February meeting — and preceding hack day! — details of which can be found below. Cheers, Andrew // Event #45 — Open Energy Tools & Interoperability (Open Inverter, OpenTRV, Heat Pump Monitoring) On the 18 February 2016, 18:00 - 20:00 at BCS London, 1st Floor, The Davidson Building, 5 Southampton Street, London, WC2E 7HA. Registration: http://oshug.org/event/45 For the forty-fifth meeting we will return to a topic which has been a recurring theme and of much interest at previous meetings, open energy platforms. There will be talks on Open Inverter, OpenTRV and heat pump monitoring, with a focus also on interoperability. The evening meeting will also be preceded by an interoperability hack day for project contributors. — Low power DC conversion using open source hardware The Open Inverter is a micro inverter designed to produce an AC power output of up to 250 VA. It uses modular, open source PCB designs for both it's controller and power boards — and is extendible to larger power outputs or for other power electronics projects, such as battery charging, DC ring mains and DC power transformation using buck-boost DC/DC converters. Open Inverter will provide an AC output from a single 250W photovoltaic panel, micro-hydro turbine. It also has applications in electric bike charging and DC power storage. The key PCBs are currently at either the layout or manufacture stage. The microcontroller board features an RFM69 low power wireless, making it compatible with the Open Energy Monitor ecosystem. Ken Boak started his professional career at BBC Research Department in 1986 working on digital signal processing systems for HDTV and subsequently over 30 years, a mix of 10 other technology companies, both UK and US based, in the fields of instrumentation, automation, telemetry telecomms. Ken has been interested in energy monitoring since the early 1990s, when he constructed a 4 seater electric car, and provided rudimentary energy analysis of the battery charge and discharge cycles. In 1998 he joined a South London company and designed a low power wireless, monitor device for automatic, remote gas and electricity meter reading. In 2009 Ken worked on the Onzo Energy Monitoring Kit, a commercial device that was ultimately distributed to Southern Electric customers. Then in 2010 he produced a series of educational devices to teach engineering undergraduates the principles of photovoltaic energy systems. Ken has continued his interests in energy monitoring, working collaboratively with Megni on the OpenEnergyMonitor project, the open Inverter Project and also for All Power Labs in Berkeley, California, where he was involved in power monitoring of wood gasifier generator sets. He tries to live a low impact lifestyle in a modest Edwardian house in Surrey, with a little help from modern electronics. — OpenTRV OpenTRV have a vision to make carbon cutting and energy saving easy and cheap for everyone, with a mission to take 8% out of the EU’s carbon emissions and in the order of £300 out of a typical UK home’s heating bill every year. Achieving this using a device that doesn’t need an instruction manual or a smartphone to operate. OpenTRV aim to eventually be managing 400 million home radiators across Europe. Their journey so far has taken them from “scratching an itch” with open source, to injection moulded plastics being made in Shenzhen, and attempting to build a growth business around their ideas, that could really make a difference to carbon and climate, while improving householder comfort and health. As part of their aim to make the world a better place, OpenTRV will keep as much as possible of their work in the public eye and liberally licensed, while interoperating with existing equipment and protocols so that there is no need to reinvent the wheel and the end user doesn’t get “locked in”. To that end, interoperability with OpenergyMonitor and OpenHAB are high on their wish list! Damon Hart-Davis is lead on the OpenTRV open source project created following his 2012 presentation to DECC's smart heating workshop. He has freelanced in technology for over 30 years, delivering mission-critical products from design to BAU in the City for more than 20 of those, and has founded and been involved in several start-ups over that time with his creations seen on TV, the Web, and his pioneering Internet Service Provider helping crack open that market more than 20 years ago. A previous virtual/on-line credit-card company start-up that he co-founded as CTO, Ixaris, turns over ~£10m. Mark Hill spent 15 years in the City after a solid grounding in IT at the chip level at the microprocessor manufacturer Inmos, designing and delivering highly complex systems. Project management, direction and governance are all part of his toolkit. He now speaks regularly about innovation, collaboration and IoT. Recently he founded a mobile phone software start-up and is now OpenTRV Ltd's co-founder. — Heat pumps and heat pump monitoring Heat pumps are a key part of zero carbon energy plans, making it possible to provide heating from renewable energy in an efficient way. Heat pumps have a rocky track record in the UK and there are numerous stories of poorly performing systems, giving householders unexpectedly high electricity bills. However, there are also many systems that have been designed and installed well that do work effectively. This talk will give an example of using open source hardware and software tools to monitor and evaluate the performance of heat pumps, using the speaker's own air source heat pump system at home as a case study. Trystan Lea is co-founder and core developer on the OpenEnergyMonitor project. He is also testing out through his own life how it is possible to provide for our energy needs from sustainable sources, while using and developing open source energy modelling and monitoring tools, to understand and evaluate what is possible and how we might better design zero carbon energy systems. Trystan is currently testing heat pump heating, along with electric vehicle and solar photovoltaic at home. — Interoperability Hack Day The 18th February meeting will be preceded by a hack day, running from 09:00-17:00 and also hosted at the BCS offices in Covent Garden. This will aim to to foster collaboration between open energy platform projects, in support of a greater interoperability. There is a separate registration page for this part of the day, but please note that participants are expected to have experience of developing for a relevant platform, such as OpenEnergyMonitor, OpenHAB, OpenTRV, or some other open source energy or home automation etc. system. As such hose without suitable experience would not benefit from attending. https://events.bcs.org/book/1886/ Please note that the link at the top of the page should be used for registering for the evening talks. Note: Please aim to arrive by 18:15 as the event will start at 18:30 prompt.

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