In article <3A959023.DEC3722F@hotmail.com>, Dan Johnson 
<zap### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

> Hey just found something that might be in interest.  A finished circuit
> board, and schematic made in povray.
> 
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Alf_Peake/PC-BOARD.JPG

I remember seeing that before...I think it was posted here.
Hmm, what is it? (Mr. Peake, you reading this?)
The bridge rectifier, large capacitors, and 7808 voltage regulator make 
a regulated 8V power supply that takes an AC input, and there seems to 
be an option to use a battery as a power source as well, but I don't 
recognize the 8-pin DIP IC. That and the other components don't look 
like they belong on a power-supply board. There is something labelled 
"door"...maybe a trigger for a garage door opener, or an alarm for when 
a door gets opened, or a doorbell. The last two make the most sense...

I think he used image_maps for the part numbers and art, and maybe a 
height_field for the copper traces (it looks slightly raised)...that 
kind of stuff would be a lot easier now, you could use the object 
pattern and create a set of macros that makes a generic IC, capacitor, 
transistor, etc. and puts the specified text/other art on it, instead of 
redoing much of it for each new part. And the schematic looks like it 
was hand drawn, then scanned in as 1-bit color.

BTW, I have thought about it some more, and I think it would be possible 
to do a simple kind of PC board layout with my macros...it would be 
limited to a single-sided board, you would have to manually place 
jumpers where the traces need to cross, and the layout of the components 
would follow the layout of the schematic, which is rarely the best way 
to do things and means you may have to adjust things to make sure 
components don't intrude on each other's space, but it should work. I'll 
save it for version 2, though...

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

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