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Improving Python CLIs with Pydantic and Dataclasses
Tuesday, July 01, 2025 in Blog
(Updated: )I’ve been updating and upgrading some of my favorite CLI tools recently and writing a few parametric tools that benefit from fairly long configuration files. I was originally using vanilla dataclasses with some organic, homemade, grass-fed …
Using Kicad With Docker to Manage and Upgrade Release Versions
Monday, June 30, 2025 in Blog
Introduction KiCad is a wonderful tool that is constantly improving. Part of that is the steady release of new features, along with major version updates (approximately) once per year. Changing versions will give you some new features, fix some bugs, …
FreeCAD 2D Projections
Wednesday, June 18, 2025 in Blog
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Quick note here. SVG export of a 3D part in FreeCAD’s PartDesign/Part workbench has some flaws. It only works in one dimension and all the edges are superimposed which reliably confuses all the systems I’ve tried. Instead use the draft …
Optimal SMA Launch Layout
Saturday, June 14, 2025 in Blog
Introduction We’ve recently been working on several compact, robust, and cost effective time domain reflectometers (TDR) devices for integration into larger systems. Our most recent one, the TDR01, has 60ps sampled edges with a unit cost under …
Tuning PI Controllers for Thermoelectric Coolers
Thursday, June 12, 2025 in Blog
The code and plotting notebook for the following is available here Summary This article discusses tuning a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) controller for real-world applications and highlights the unique advantages of TECs. The plant is characterized as …
Antmicro Kmake
Monday, June 09, 2025 in Blog
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I came across this tool recently: kicad-make and tried it out. Well it’s actually be floating around in my collection of GitHub stars I periodically extend whenever there’s a new problem to solve. I’ll let the fact that they named their …
Hugo Comments With Docsy and Giscus
Thursday, May 29, 2025 in Blog
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Giscus is a super lightweight comment system powered by GitHub Discussions. It uses a GitHub app plus a small JavaScript snippet to embed a comment section on your site. If someone comments, it automatically creates a GitHub Discussion and syncs …
Making an Appimage
Monday, May 26, 2025 in Blog
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When I updated to Ubuntu 24.04 I had an upsetting number of packages break. One of these was AppCSXCAD. It reads OpenEMS XML geometry files and shows them in a GUI. Nothing exciting until you need it. My first move was making sure I could use the …
Ordering From Macrofab with KiCad
Saturday, May 24, 2025 in Blog
TLDR There’s an example project manufacturing package of the Scopefun V2 up here. Checkout kicad-xyrs and kicad-make for ordering KiCad projects with Macrofab. Introduction I recently toured MacroFab’s Houston facility and came away impressed. …