About the development of Uzuki

For the first time in almost 15 years, I tried my hand at everything from circuit design to prototype manufacturing. It's been 25 years since the board artwork!
The first job I was given as a new graduate was circuit board design. At that time, I used a template on tracing paper and drew patterns by hand. Soon I started using CAD, but it must have cost several million yen on a dedicated workstation.

Now it is possible to create things with free PC tools, from circuit diagram design to simulation and artwork. If the manufacturing is also a prototype, there is also a menu that keeps the initial cost down.
This time, we asked a domestic manufacturer to manufacture and mount the board, but we may be able to further reduce the cost by outsourcing it overseas. The board design tool used DesignSparkPCB.

DesignSpark PCB
http://www.rs-online.com/designspark/electronics/jpn/page/designspark-pcb-home-page

Of course, I used it for the first time, but it became relatively easy to use with an intuitive UI.
Equipped with an autorouter, the board size, number of layers, and number of pins are all unlimited, and even commercial use is free!
I can't believe such a useful tool is provided for free! !

This is what took the most time in designing this board. That is creating a parts library.
Although some device manufacturers provide CAD/CAM data for their parts' schematic symbols and footprints, this data may not be available, especially for newly released devices.

If a DXF file is provided by the manufacturer, you can use Accelerated Designs' Ultra Librarian to convert and output the CAD data to the respective tool format.

Accelerated Designs
http://www.accelerated-designs.com/

It also provides part library data of over 6.5 million items, and it is convenient because you can use it even with a free account.
For devices that are not listed in the library, if you pay about $3 for a 10-pin device or $64 for an 800-pin device, we can create CAD data within 5 days. If you have the money, it's useful if you need a lot of data entry.
Personally, I hope that more parts data will be released in a timely manner and the library will be enriched.

Is this something that comes naturally to people who are currently involved in manufacturing and designing circuit boards? For me, who had been away from making things by myself for a while, this experience rather than just knowledge was an eye-opening experience for me.
Having worked in the electronics industry for many years, I have experienced firsthand how the manufacturing environment is changing dramatically.
However, the soldering iron will never change.

Macnica will actively support "MAKERS" with mpression for MAKERS.

Provide sample source code

Now that we have the hardware, in order to run it we need software to access each sensor and acquire data.
Using the konashi API, you can access all the sensors on the Uzuki from the application software on your iOS device via I²C. You have to decipher the sheet.

So, first of all, Mpression for MAKERS prepares Objective-C version and JavaScript version as sample code and publishes them so that you can understand the access operation to the sensor.
Take a look at the sample code first to see how Uzuki/konashi works.

Sample code (Java Script text display version)
http://jsdo.it/mpression/5pAa

Sample code (Java Script interactive display version)
http://jsdo.it/mpression/8o23

Sample code (Objective-C version)
https://github.com/mpression/Uzuki SensorShield