So What has Luke been doing?

So these last couple of weeks I have been finished up the circuitboards, part sampling and ordering. I sent the design off to the PCB manufacture on March 1st. They said that the boards had a 4 day turn around. I got an email from them on the 7th saying that the order had been shipped out to me, however, from the tracking number all I can see is that the package is "POSTING". If someone could help me understand what this means it would be much appreciated.

Last week I ordered the $300 in parts needed so that we could populate our 5 circuit boards that are on the way. These components have already arrived and are ready to be used and tested.

For anyone who has never sampled parts, it is a God send! Sampling parts allows you to receive nearly anything for free. If you need a box, you can most likely sample that. If you need some ICs you can most likely get them. Here is a Instructable on a list of known places that sample and what they sample. So with that information aside, I placed orders to Texas Instruments and Microchip to sample: TBX0108PWR, INA169NA, I2C EEPROM, MCP3208.

In Cody's post below you will notice that we are building a stand to test the thrust and torque of our motors so that we can learn their characteristics. One thing that he didn't mention is how we are going to be powering our test stand. We were able to come across a Corsair HX520W. This power supply is has three 12V lines capable of delivering 18amps max on each channel, however if you tie all the lines together you can achieve a max of 40amps. Just to let everyone know, because you cant find this info in the manual, one of the 12V rails resides in the Molex connectors for harddrives and like components, another is in the ATX12V connector for the Motherboard, the last one can be found on PCI-Express power connectors. On the side I am working on making a board so that I can plug these connectors into a single board that will breakout the 3V3, 5V, 12V, -12V, 5VUSB with the high current capability. (BTW, Molex also lets you sample components from them.)

Who are we using for our PCB manufacturing?
http://www.iteadstudio.com/

Would you recommend them?
Currently unsure of that question. Stay tuned to find out.

If you guys have any questions be sure to leave us a comment or send us an email to either ilukester@anzhelka.com or srlm@anzhelka.com. We love questions.