I’d absolutely love if SF included a quick reference picture for their products. These images would includes important dimensions (such as mounting hole sizes), as well as the part’s pinouts.
I realize that “read the full manual” is SF’s moto, but often I’ll need to dig through datasheets just to find the pinout on some simple part, and if you’ve gone through some of the datasheets for SF products I’m sure that you’ve run across a few that were less than accurate or did not include the necessary dimensions. Some products don’t even have datasheets at all, and I don’t think any of SF’s boards include accurate board size and mounting dimensions.
That’s a good idea, and a great example. The design folks like it, but it’ll be a serious undertaking to do the whole catalog. Would be very helpful. Can’t promise a timeline, but thanks!
Hey, I was just thinking about the possibility of crowd sourcing this work. If a set of criteria was created so that customers could submit dimension drawings and the like, all that would remain would be to error check and approve the submissions (just like the 3D model repo.)
Popular and new products, those in the most need of such documentation, would likely receive submissions very quickly. SF’s customers are a hardcore (and talented) breed who love technical info and community contribution, I’d wager that usable images would be ready and waiting every Monday morning.
I agree with Tom. You may find that within a week, you will find most of your products will have dimension sheets. I couldn’t count how many times I had to dig through the internet to find the simplest technical drawing that should have been from the manufacturer, not just by Sparkfun.
The way I see it, if you stay with your open source standards and keep the prices low, I believe the community will help out more than you realize. All you really have to do is give us an email address to send the images to.
