New FPC Arduino

[x88x]

Seeed Studios is working on a shrunk arduino clone on FPC (Flexible Printed Circuit) material. Interesting and potentially really useful idea...it'll be interesting to see how the end product turns out.
http://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2010/06/29/seeeduino-film-maybe-the-first-arduino-board-on-fpc/
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4744921096_8dc51633a1.jpg

[Oneslowz28]

There is a good chance I will have one of the prototypes in a few days. Thinking of using it to create a wearable POV. It is an interesting design though. It includes a charging circuit for a li-po battery.

[Oneslowz28]

Seeed Just posted their revisions to the original design.


Remove Uart to USB Frame, Leave 5pin in breakout Frame for UARTSB programming
Reinforce the IC and connector area
Rearrange breakout Frame
Battery connector
Replace power switch with idle button
Remove FPC connectors
Full Silk screen
Add protective coating


Then, design goal is updated to:

Seeeduino Film and extension Frame will fully base on FPC (flexible printed circuits) with area reinforcement. The design goal is extreme small, flexible and light weight while remaining a developing platform compatible with Arduino ™.

Features (alpha2):


Cut-able, Scrollable and Chain-able
Full functional Atmega168/328 breakout
Built-in charger circuit
Super Low power consumption
Extreme Low weight
Extreme small dimension
Unified FPC bus


Structure

Seeeduino film and extension frames will be consisted of 3 functional block, each about 2cm*2cm.

Unified 20 pin bus backbones every frame allows free cascading

Films and frames, frame and frame, or cut frames, could be connected via joint board which has 2 FPC connectors.

http://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/P1110919-1024x768.jpg

[x88x]

Nice! They need to include 2 joint boards with each one though (or at least have it as an option). I can just see someone cutting one too soon, hitting a bug, and having to wait several days to get the board in the fix it.... :facepalm:

[Oneslowz28]

V1.1 is now out. I am a beta tester for it and their new accelerometer.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4148/4840148434_4b456f7c76.jpg