blog@SchmartBoard

Schmart videos

Have you been watching the Schmart videos on YouTube? I have, and they are fun, as well as being informative.

I especially liked the one showing a BGA package being mounted. In the voice-over you will note that Schmart only covers 1mm pitch devices right now. For prototyping I am not sure we want to contemplate going to the 0.5mm fine-line packages, but how about something like an 0.8mm pitch? I know that I use 0.8mm here pretty regularly, and a SchmartBoard at that pitch would definitely be useful for me. But how about for everybody else?

Let's have some comments about what YOU would like to see added to the range.

New distributors and other news

Just a quick note on a couple new distributors.  San Diego Electronic Supply http://www.sdelectronicsupply.com/ in of all places, San Diego Cal., now has SchmartBoard available in their retail location.  Many thousands of miles to the east(or west) aavrs of The Netherlands www.aavrs.nl will be selling SchmartBoards. 

In other news, we have begun to get some interest on our newly announced SchmartClip program.  http://www.schmartboard.com/index.asp?page=schmartland_clip   I hope to see videos from as many customers as possible.  Remember, it does not have to be fancy.  If we were selling products to Hollywood, we might request the quality of a  Scorsese film.  In all honesty, think "Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes" quality...just without the hokey violence and you'll fit in well.

More videos and your chance to be a star!

We have added more videos to our YouTube channel.  They can all be seen at:  http://youtube.com/profile?user=nealgb  They now include hand soldering a BGA, QFN, QFP, what supplies to use an more.  Feel free to subscribe, comment, list us as friends, etc.

We have a new program that has not yet been officially announced.   It is called the SchmartClip program and is at:  http://www.schmartboard.com/index.asp?page=schmartland_clip .  Basically, we want you to post your circuit on our channel and we'll reward you for it.  See you at the movies!

You Tube Fever

Yesterday we posted a video on YouTube of a SchmartBoard being hand soldered.  Previous to that, YouTube was the place for me to see people falling off of skateboards without a helmet, or to see the latest episode of South Park. 

Now I have seen the light.  Today we have added three more videos and next week we'll add some more.  While, I'm sure my videos will not compete in popularity with the latest video from American Idol contestants, perhaps it will be helpful to some of you.  Many people had asked for such videos from us.  Now that we started, I may become a video posting monster.  All I can say is, be careful what you ask for!  The links for all of these fine cinematic pieces are linked under the "Multimedia Links" section of www.schmartboard.com

Lights, camera action!

For awhile, my long list of things to do has included "make a better video of how to hand solder a SchmartBoard|ez".  After some recent requests for such a video, I decided to bring it forward on the list.    The movie can be seen at: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjEdoZB0iDs

I hope this helps people see how simple it is.  We'll also make one for soldering BGAs as well.

Neal

Bypassing a Schmart Board

No we are not going to try and bypass Schmart technology, we are going to talk about bypassing supply lines on your SchmartBoard!

Before I first used a Schmart board I looked at the PDF file for the one I had chosen ( 201-0006-01 ) and thought, "hmmm, if this is all there is then we could have some supply bypassing issues!" - because it sure looks like a long way from a pin, out to the pin pads, then up to the 0603 component areas, then to GND. But the day came when the boards turned up and I got to look at the back side as well. And in fact the Schmart people have been rather clever and given us an easy way to not only add bypass capacitors, but also to tie pins to GND.

Look at this photo of the underside of my board. What you can see is that the innermost pad associated with each pin has a matching pad on the ground plane, just the right spacing for an 0603 component. The little blue 'specks' on this board are in fact 0603 zer-ohm jumper resistors. On one or two pins you will also see black blobs, which are either 100nF or 1uF bypass capacitors on the appropriate pins. The wire linkages are done with some Solder-Eze or similar enamlled wire which I have been using for many years.

For some time before finding the Schmart technology I was using a variety of SMD adaptor boards with more conventional DIP style prototyping PCB's. For some things I would go straight to a custom PCB because the prototyping process just wasn't suitable. But now for many jobs I can eschew the $100 prototype PCB and work things out on the Schmart board with many fewer hassles - with much greater speed and significantly lower cost.

 

Welcome to 2007

Hello!...I am the VP of sales and marketing, and also the co-founder of SchmartBoard. I am the guy on the right, Andrew Yaung, President and Co-founder, is on the left. This is a photo from the SchmartBoard|ez launch at DemoFall in September 2005. I have decided it is time to blog. It is time for two reasons. First of all, technology is moving so fast that one must try and stay current with the popular trends if they are to remain relevant within a popular culture. When dealing with an audience who are generally savvier than most in terms of technology, this becomes even more imperative.

The second and perhaps more important reason is accessibility. Today any customer can call me direct without a "gatekeeper". We are small, nimble and eager to have a more complex relationship with as many of our customers as we can. Many of you who may be reading this have had conversations with me via phone, e-mail or in person at an appearance. Blogging is yet another avenue for this relationship. After reading an entry, you may choose to give me feedback, ideas, or recommendations. This is a wonderful thing, customers telling me what we need to do and why. Previously a company would have to pay a lot of money for intelligence like this.

In this blog, we will give you insights regarding what we are doing and thinking. What new products, technologies and special events such as the Schmartie Awards are we thinking about? Where is SchmartBoard going to have a booth? Why did we choose to support a particular component size with a new board? How did we invent the next technology that we will release? 

I hope many of you will find it useful and interesting, even entertaining on occasion, and subscribe to us in your favorite RSS reader.