I thought about sharing a bit of how I use my HPC on a daily basis and maybe encourage some of the users here to share their uses too
(plus points for pictures and screenshots
). It's a very interesting way to discover more uses for your HPC, maybe a better workflow for something that you already use it for, or just discover new apps!
Recently I've started using my Jornada 720 as a replacement for my iPad as a lab computer since it's extremely tiny
(space is very important in the bench
) and can do practically everything I need my iPad for, of course I still have my main computer in the lab to program microcontrollers and do everything, but the Jornada is great to have near my working area so I can quickly check datasheets, schematics, and parts list while soldering or prototyping.
Usually when I'm prototyping or testing a board I have to check datasheets for pinouts, common voltages, etc. and Adobe Reader is great for this task:
In my main computer I keep a very well organized folder
(and database, but I'm still researching the best way to get the DB into my j720 and keep them both synced
) with datasheets for practically every electronic component I have in stock. So whenever I update the folder with more stuff I just rsync everything to my Jornada, and since it's a nice Linux machine I've already wrote a nice script to automate things.
Lastly, but certainly not least, I've built a small command line application a while ago called
build-bom which gets a schematic file from my CAD program
(
EAGLE) and can output the parts list into HTML, CSV, or JSON. So whenever I'm populating a board I export the parts list to HTML and open it in my Jornada so I can know which part to place where in the board:
So, that's it! Feel free to comment on my setup and share your own HPC workflow.