How to Design Christmas Tree PCB with eagle

Elecrow prepared this Chrismas tree free. Please have a look at the following picture. You can get it via order it online. The method to design such shape PCB with eagle is very easy and you can design PCB with other special shape. The following steps shows how to design this PCB via eagle.

First, prepare the picture for the shape, silk screen and solder mask layer. The following picture is some pictures that we prepared before importing them to the eagle design file. The left top two pictures is original picture and the other pictures is proceeded to BMP file.You can change the size of the pictures before importing to the eagle design file.

Second, Importing the BMP pictures to check the size of picture and then to adjust the size of the picture.

Step 1, NEW a .brd file.
Step 2, Right click the ulp button and select the import-bmp.ulp.

Step 3, select the BMP picture you need to import and press the open button.

Step 4, Select used colors. If you need to import the black color, select the black color, If you need to use the white color, selet the white color.

Step 5, select one layer and press the ok button. The step is very important.

The following layer is what we used mostly.

1 – TOP   (top copper layer)
2 – Bottom  ( Bottom copper layer)
21 – tPlace  (top silk screen)
22 – bPlace  (Bottom silk screen)
29 – tStop  (TOP solder mask layer)
30 – bStop  (Bottom solder mask layer)
46 – Milling (PCB outline layer)

We selected 46 layer here.

Step 6, Press the Run script button to finish importing the BMP picture and then what you need to do is to measure the size and then adjust the size of the picture. 

Third, After adjusted the size fo all the pictures, you can adjust the position of different picture in the eagle brd file and export it as gerber file. And then what you need to do is  order the PCB online and waiting for it.

Note, The minimum width silk screen is 0.15mm. the silk screen less than it may not be printed.

If there are several picture need to import in the design file, designed the picture as .lbr file would be much easy to move. If you want to know more about how to creat the .lbr file or you like this blog, please give a positive comment to me.
Thanks very much for your reading.

You can go to this page to get this Christmas PCB tree free. http://www.elecrow.com/chrismas-partsgift-c-626.html

Crowtail IR Reflective Sensor and Analog Gyro

To make making easier and user can be more easier to bring their innovation into products, Elecrow aims at providing high quality products and services with lower price. what's more, elecrow keeps on creating a series of crowtail modules that are plug and play and very easy to use especially for the Arduino starters. Here you can have a look at the following three crowtail modules with good features.

IR Reflective Sensor

This IR reflective module emits the infrared light and then detects if the echo received, to estimates if there is a obstacle or not. It utilizes a RPR-220 reflective photo sensor modules, When no infrared light echo received, that is, there is no obstacle in front of the sensor, this module output logic HIGH, and vice versa.

There is also an on-board potentiality to adjust the sensitivity. This sensor is a basic and widely used part in applications such as line-following cars, rotary speed detection, auto data logging on utility meters. It can be used to compact disk players, copiers, game machines,Obstacle Detection, Office automation equipment and watt-hour meter pulse data sampling.

Crowtail- Analog Gyro

The Crowtail- Analog Gyro is based on an angular velocity sensor(Murata-ENC-03R) that uses the phenomenon of Coriolis force, which is generated when a rotational angular velocity is applied to.It provides 1-axis velocity with analog output. with precision and quick-response measurements, the modules suitable for applications with position& posture controlling.

if you are interested in these two, you can visit elecrow online store and you will see more crowtail sensors available for your project and may be some of them can be of great help for your project.

Crowtail- Sound Sensor and Touch Sensor

Crowtail- Sound Sensor can detect the sound loudness of the environment. The main component of the module is a simple microphone to receive the sound signal, with band pass filter and a LMV358 amplifier to make the output signal easy to be received by microprocessor. 
    
This module outputs analog signal that shows the relative loudness. Besides, an on-board potentiometer can be used to adjust output voltage.

Crowtail touch sensor can detect the human touch by sensing the change of capacitance. Based on the touch IC TTP223-B, this module can detect human finger in 0~3mm, that is, you can place this sensor under a non metallic surface such as the glass or paper, with thickness less than 3MM, this would be useful for applications that waterproof is needed, or you want to make the buttons secret. 
    
With the panel mount design, that is, the side of touch pad is smooth. Elecrow Crowtail- Touch Sensor is easy to install in projects, users can easily install it onto cases or other internal materials.

Useful information about VS1053 MP3 Shield you can't skip

For the starters who are running with the Arduino world, knowing more about Arduino products can be essential. Now allow me to introduce the VS1053 MP3 shield for you. It is a great MP3 decoder, it is capable of decoding Ogg Vorbis/MP3/AAC/WMA/MIDI audio and encoding IMA ADPCM and user-loadable Ogg Vorbis, can drive 30 ohm headphones with no additional power supply. This VS1053 MP3 Shield is designed based on VS1053B from VLSI.

For the best headphone listening experience, the VS1053 includes EarSpeaker spatial processing which accurately simulates how a room with stereo loudspeakers would sound. In addition to being able to decode all major formats, VS1053 is capable of recording in Ogg Vobis files. With the SD card slot on the other side of the board, you can play mp3 files from SD card using this shield. It is easily to drop it in your project or make a mp3 player using your Arduino.

Besides this, you can also know more features about the VS1053 MP3 shield:

1. Can play a variety of music formats, support for OGG encoding real-time recording
2. SPI interface, the control signal lines are led out
3. A headphone and stereo output. A microphone for recording. A line_in input interface.
4. Power indicator. 3.3V and 2.8V of LDO chip AMS-1117 on board, provides up to 800mA current
5. A single power supply: +5 VDC
6. 12.288 Mhz crystal, SD card slot

With the SD card slot on the other side of the board, you can play mp3 files from SD card using this shield. It is easily to drop it in your project or make a mp3 player using your Arduino.To read more info, you can also visit the Wiki link for the detail such as usage, code and so on.

Crowtail modules needed in the plant automatically caring system

Creative can make life more convenient. This is a project mainly about making an Arduino smart house to take care of the plant automatically when the people are out for days.  In this project, there are many modules you may need, you can choose the crowtail modules cause they are plug and play, very easy to use even you are a beginner sunning with Arduino world. 

Before the project, you need to prepare the following materials:

1.Crowduino

The Crowduino is 100% Arduino compatible board. It is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328 ( datasheet). It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, a reset button, and a XBee socket. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller. Simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.

2. Crowtail - Base Shield

It has stranded interfaces for convenient connection. The Crowtail- Base Shield plugs into Arduino and is the foundation of the Crowtail system. ALL I/O ports of the Arduino are exposed and adapted into Crowtail connectors which include digital I/O,analog I/O,and specialized ports(I2C,UART).

3. Crowtail Buzzer  The buzzer module is for making sound in your project. It sounds when activated by a logic HIGH signal. Connect the buzzer to any of the D(digital) ports of Crowtail- Base Shiled, you can easily make it sounds with setting the related ports to logic HIHG.

4. Crowtail - Moisture Sensor It is used to test the soil moisture of environment tree. This sensor uses the two probes to pass current through the soil, and then it reads then resistance to get the moisture level. More water makes the soil conduct electricity more easily (less resistance), while dry soil conducts electricity poorly (more resistance). Compares to the other moisture sensor using the same moisture test method, this module has a super long legs, making it suitable for actually applications.  

5. Crowtail - Light Sensor  It’s used to test the light strength of environment tree.The Light sensor module uses the GL5516 photoresistor to detect the light intensity of the environment. The resistance of the sensor decreases when the light intensity of the environment increases. The chip LMV358 is used as a voltage follower to enable you get a accurate data. 

6. Crowtail - Temperature & Humidiy Sensor  It’s used to test the temperature & humidity of the office.The module contains a DHT11 temperature & humidity senorthat is a complex sensor with a calibrated digital signal out.It use digital module acquisition technology and the temperature&humidity sensor technology.Sensor consists of a resistance type moisture element and a NTC temperature measuring element. Because of single wire serial interface, it is easy to use the module.

7. Crowtail - OLED  It’s used to test the soil moisture, temperature & humidity and light strength of living environment.

8. Crowtail - Serial Wifi x1 it’s the LAN server of company and can know the environmental state of plant when visit.

All these modules you can get in high quality and low price from Elecrow and the steps you can refer to http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-smart-home-Environment-tree/

Crowtail- RGB-LED and Crowtail OLED

The Crowtail- RGB-LED module with 4 pcs of WS2812B which is a Changeable & Addressable LED. Users can control all the LED with only one microcontroller pin! Besides, the LED bar can be also changeable, that is, you can connect more than one LED bar together to make your project more dreamful. In this module , you can control every LED whit different color at the same time.

Features

• Connection Mode:D(digital)
• One high speed serial port
• low power consumption, suitable for battery-powered applications
• Working voltage: 5v

Crowtail- OLED is constructed from 128 x 64 dot matrix OLED module. The display offers high brightness, self-emission, high contrast ratio, slim/thin outline, wide viewing angle, wide temperature range and low power consumption.

Features

• Connection Mode:I(IIC)
• Display Color: Bule/Black
• Resolution: 128x64
• Interface: I2C
• Wide range of operating temperature: : -20°C~70°C

There are also more crowtail modules, 32 in total which are easy to use with excellent features for users.  Now there is a crowtail starter kit that are play and plug with step by step guidance fro the starters to get started with Arduino world easier!!!   

An interesting project using newly Crowtail modules you can’t skip

An ordinary hat just can be the sunshade and it is not so useful for the workers who works outside on high place. Thus I want to remake a hat with Crowtail modules for more functions such as detecting the UV intensity to remind user to have a rest, at the same time. this hat can also offer the correct time info for workers without a watch when working on high place. Moreover, this hat has the warning function of the behind vehicle at dusk way.

First you will need to collect all the modules: a base shield which has stranded interfaces for convenient connection. Then is a Crowduino which is 100% Arduino compatible. UV Sensor to measure the UV intensity of the environment. Buzzer to make noise to remind user and RTC that can provide the right time in low power consumption. You will need a RGB-LED has the warning function. Users can control all the LED with only one microcontroller pin. OLED to display the time information and the UV intensity. Battery is essential.

Then, you can start this project step by step as follow: install the Crowduino. You need to sew the Crowduino onto this cap carefully at first to make it steady. You need to plug the Crowtail- Base Shield into Crowduino. Connect the buzzer to the Crowtail- Base Shield and connect the buzzer to the Digital ports D4 as picture. Via this buzzer, you can control the OLED to see whether it is displaying the current time and UV intensity or not.

Install the RGB-LED onto the cap. Crowtail - RGB-LED has the function of warning and when reach the designed time, such as 8:00 pm, it will start blinking automatically. Users can control all the LED with only one microcontroller pin. Besides, this module can control every LED with different colors at the same time.

Install the UV Sensor. The Crowtail- UV Sensor ML8511 is an easy to use ultraviolet light sensor. The MP8511 UV (ultraviolet) Sensor works by outputting an analog signal in relation to the amount of UV light that’s detected. This breakout can be very handy in creating devices that warn the user of sunburn or detect the UV index as it relates to weather conditions.

Install the RTC. This tiny RTC module is based on the clock chip DS1307 which communicates with microcontrollers with I2C protocol. The clock/calendar provides correct seconds, minutes, hours, day, date, month, and year information in very low power consumption.

Install the OLED. It is used to display the time information and UV intensity. It’s IIC interface to connect I Port (IIC Port). The display can offer high brightness, self-emission, high contrast ratio, slim/thin outline, wide viewing angle, wide temperature range in low power consumption. Choose the 9V battery. It is not only in small size but it can supply power in a long time. 

Download the Firmware. Use USB to connect the Crowtail with computer and open the program. Choose your COM interface connecting with Crowduino, here we choose COM3. Choose the target board. Here we use Crowduino. Upload the program as picture.

After all the steps finished, you can check every step to see whether there is a problem or not and welcome to contact us. Then have a try to see the effect. With this Arduino intelligent cap, you can have more function s and use it in your daily life. It’s believed that it can be of great help. Besides this project, you can also have a look at the previous Arduino project also make full use of Crowtail modules to care a flagging tree.