Introduction to the Open Hardware and CAD/CAM Devroom
Gnucap is a free/libre versatile and modern, modular, analog and mixed-signal simulator. Verilog-AMS is a standardised behavioural language for analog and mixed-signal systems based on the IEEE 1364-2005 industry standard, commonly known as Verilog. Verilog and its extensions offer a portable representation for circuits and device models consistent across application domains. With funding from NLnet we are pushing for standardisation in an otherwise heterogeneous environment of traditional and incompatible tools.
We are working on a first open source (and free/libre) Verilog-AMS implementation. It consists of extensions for Gnucap that elaborate circuits represented in Verilog, provide suitable simulation algorithms and interface with artifacts from related projects. The companion tool Modelgen-Verilog deals with behavioural models for mixed-signal devices, turning them into plugins for Gnucap.
In this talk we will explain the need for standard support in free software tools and summarise the developments since FOSDEM-25. We have filled gaps in the simulator infrastructure and extended the standard coverage vastly improving the user experience. We will outline some related ongoing activities, e.g. on porting open source PDKs to Verilog, on the Qucs schematic editor and on device libraries as well as testing and QA.
PCB design often require a lot of exchange with mechanical CAD softwares especially when the mechanical integration has a lot of constraints. Today, most of the time, the ECAD/MCAD collaboration is done through STEP, DXF, SVG, or other file formats, and usually a combination of several of them.
The IDX protocols aims at using a single protocol, that will keep tracks of the changes incrementally as the design goes on, and even use a shared library of components, bridging the gap between the electrical and the mechanical worlds.
Implemented in KiCad at first, it will allow interfacing with most commercial MCAD softwares used in the industry, and certainly pave the way for the open source ones.
Just about a year ago I started on my 3rd attempt at building a new FreeCAD workbench to provide bidirectional syncing between FreeCAD and KiCAD with a focus on multiple boards and minimal user interaction. With KiCAD v9 being release with it's new long-term API it made sense to try again.
This is a followup to my KiCon 2025 which I will detail some of the progress that has been made since, and impressions of the KiCAD API as I've used it more.
Dune 3D is parametric 3D CAD application I started developing about 2½ years ago. It combines the solver from Solvespace with OpenCASCADE for a geometry kernel under a modern Gtk4-based user interface.
In this talk, I'll go into how the project evolved in the past two years as well as what's ahead.
https://dune3d.org/
There are thousands of different IoT devices on the market. To control them, you currently have a few options:
Use the vendor’s cloud service. This approach has many problems: there is no interoperability between different vendors, so you end up installing 10 different cloud apps for 10 different devices; there are privacy concerns; and anything beyond the basics usually requires paid features.
Use an open-source platform such as Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Domoticz, FHEM, PiDome, or Majordomo. These platforms are powerful but often too complex, time-consuming to learn, and relatively expensive to run—typically EUR 100+ and tens or even hundreds of hours of study.
Currently, there is no simple, easy-to-use, and low-cost solution on the market.
We accepted this challenge and are now designing an open-source hardware solution running Free/Libre Open Source Software. Our goal is a device that costs around EUR 20 for the end user, offers more functionality than typical vendor cloud services, and remains fully open for modification and customization by anyone interested.
After six months of work, we already have a functioning hardware prototype and software that supports basic features.
In this presentation, I will discuss the challenges we encountered, demonstrate our current progress, and highlight the major obstacles we are facing. If others share a similar interest, your help and collaboration are very welcome.
LibrePCB 2.0 is an exciting milestone of our mission to provide an easy-to-use, modern, Open-Source PCB design software. With its completely redesigned user interface and new design concepts, the productivity and general user experience have been significantly improved. In this talk I will demonstrate the capabilities and advantages of LibrePCB 2.0, including other new features and improvements beyond its new UI. Also you will get an update about other aspects of the LibrePCB project, like our funding status or why & how we started the transition from C++/Qt to more modern technologies.
LibrePCB is an Open-Source EDA software to design PCBs, providing the following advantages:
Whether you are a newbie or a professional engineer, LibrePCB is made for you - just give it a try!
I'm the developer of the Flipper Blackhat, a 100% open source WiFi addon board for your Flipper Zero. Unlike other modules, it doesn't use an ESP32, but a Allwinner Linux SoM. The question I hear most often is: "What’s the point of the Flipper Zero?"
The Blackpants are a carrier board for the Blackhat, and my answer to this question. No longer do you need the Flipper Zero!
In this talk I'll overview all the hardware and software of both the Blackpants and the Blackhat and my journey throughout developing the device!
https://github.com/o7-machinehum/Blackpants
https://github.com/o7-machinehum/flipper-blackhat
https://youtu.be/tdRWB2ILRtY?si=evX8zsZ_B1GQfZtv
We're members of a hacker team that made Blepis, a hacker-friendly and fully open-source Linux PDA. The Blepis project is a continuation of Beepy PDA, which in turn was made possible thanks to a string of open-source hardware projects. We're here to tell you that story, share our own radical open-source strategy and how it's already been helping other open-source PDA projects grow, and also tell more about our project's journey.
Developing hardware is hard. It's quite literally in the name. Building a global open source collaboration is also hard, and even harder when every new contributor needs to source physical components.
In general the hardware development toolchain is locked down vastly expensive walled gardens, limiting contribution and collaboration to well funded organisations.
This talk will explore how the OpenFlexure Microscope project uses (and abuses) a whole toolchain of open source software to manage, automate, and accelerate the design of a lab-grade microscope in use all over the world.
What to expect for the KiCad version 10 release, what the project hopes to achieve during version 11 development, and all the latest news about the KiCad project.
https://www.kicad.org/
This is a generic state-of-affairs talk about FreeCAD, a manner for people to catch up with all that has happened in the FreeCAD universe since last FOSDEM. We will show what is new in FreeCAD itself, what is cooking in the development kitchens, and a glimpse over community happenings and what the FPA, the non-profit behind the project, has been doing.
OpenCascade Technology (OCCT) serves as the geometric backbone for the open-source CAD/CAM ecosystem, powering major platforms like FreeCAD, KiCad, and numerous industrial IFC viewers.
In this session, the member of OCCT3D (Capgemini Engineering) will unveil the roadmap and technical achievements of the upcoming Version 8.0.0 release. We will discuss the architectural evolution required to support modern modeling challenges and the balance between industrial robustness and open-source flexibility.
Key topics will include: * The 8.0.0 Milestone: A breakdown of major breaking changes, API cleanups, and the transition strategies for developers. * Core Algorithms: Improvements in Boolean operations, meshing robustness, and tolerance handling. * Interoperability: Updates on data exchange formats.
This talk is essential for developers relying on OCCT for their applications and users interested in the future of the underlying kernel that drives open hardware design.
Project: https://github.com/Open-Cascade-SAS/OCCT Forum: https://dev.opencascade.org/forums OCCT3D: https://occt3d.com/
The Electrical Rule Checks (ERC) in a CAD design software are a set of heuristic checks to help spotting potential mistakes in schematics. However, they have subtleties and quirks, which can lead people to fight against them instead of using them to their full potential. In this talk, I will discuss some of the pain points I have experienced or have whitnessed people experience while using ERC, give some tips, and encourage people to use them and even try and improve them even more. It will be illustrated by a few real-life blunders that a good use of ERC could have prevented. TL;DR: I love ERC.