LibreSatCam/README.md

3.1 KiB

LibreSatCam

LibreSatCam is a project to make a free software, open source hardware, libre camera optimized for photographing artificial satellites.

It is a fork of an upstream project, see below for details.

KiCad Camera PCB in 3D.

KiCad FPGA PCB in 3D.

KiCad USB PCB in 3D.

TODO

Perhaps, round one:

  • Create bill of materials (BoM) suitable for ProtoExpress.
  • Submit BoM to ProtoExpress.
  • Submit upstream pre-made Altium gerber files to ProtoExpress.

Round two:

  • Port board to KiCad.
  • Submit new design to ProtoExpress.

Altium to KiCad

The upstream files for this project are created in the proprietary Altium application. The files are being converted to KiCad, which is free software.

  • Import schematics with standalone eeschema. *.kicad_pro file is automatically created.

  • Import .PrjPcb file with standalone pcbnew.

  • Tools --> Harvest footprints to new library.... Create the library, containing all pcb footprints. XXX Note: not in KiCad 6?

  • Close everything, open .kicad_pcb files with text editor.

  • Replace all references of non-existing library names from Altium, to the new library, created earlier.

  • Launch KiCad, open .kicad_pro file, created above by eeschema.

  • Start pcbnew, Tools --> Update Schematic from pcb.... This will set correct footprint assignments from PCB to schematics.

  • Save everything.

  • Tools --> Update PCB from schematics... as sanity check.

The conversion process steps came from looking at issues, the KiCad forum, and trial and error.

Note: this process still doesn't work perfect, and some of the steps above are no longer options.

See also:

Bill of Materials

See the BoM/ directory for the bill of materials spreadsheets.

There are three PCBs to be manufactured, requiring three BoMs. Converting the three below to BoMs suitable for ProtoExpress.

  • Camera --- Initial draft.
  • FPGA --- Draft, some Mouser parts.
  • USB --- Initial draft.

Upstream

See README-upstream.md.

Upstream main website:

Upstream source code (cloned to master branch in local repo):

Upstream blog post documentation, also a copy in this repo in docs/:

Upstream video documentation:

Upstream license, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Copyright © Gaurav Singh.

May contain components from upstream Altium libraries, which retain their upstream copyright.

Copyright

Upstream sources under their respective copyrights.

License: CC By 4.0 International, same as upstream.

Copyright © 2022, Jeff Moe.