Category: Uncategorized

Power board design…

A bit of a rocky version with lyrics at the end… 

Recently, we decided to help a client with a custom commercial power board design with a list of criterias..
All to fit in a very tight space… 

Board size?
14*28 mm, or .. about 2 keys on the keyboard, side by side… 

• Reverse polarity protection. 
• 1A Buck/Boost convert to a steady output voltage.
• Battery low capacity indication by through board lead.
• Output overvoltage protection and cutout.

I’m pretty happy with what it came out to be – It’s an absolute tiny board with resistors being 0806 and 1203 sizes.
Untold revisions and headaches later,  this is what it looks like… 

One of our services is custom board design, and this is another example of one we designed around ESP32. 
Specs:

• ESP32, dual core 240MHz, 16M flash, 8M ram. 
• Onboard power regulation for 3.3 and 5V
• USD card for data / apps.
• USB for programming, comms and power.
• Separate 5-12V power supply.
• 4 PWM/I2S, analogue/digital IO
• 4 2A 30 V mosfet drive lines (switch/pwm, NMOS)
• IO is 3.3/5V selectable per port\
• 2 serial
• I2 port
• SPI/canbus port (up to 80 Mbit)
• 32 IO (voltage selectable per bank of 8) with interrupt capability and switch rates up to ~800KHz. 
• RTC with battery backup
• 2K EEPROM for config / data. 
• RGB LED for status

 

Board design blues

Lyrics: 

Verse 1
I woke up Monday morning with a schematic in my hand,
A coffee-stained disaster and a half-forgotten plan.
The op-amp looked offended, the MOSFET gave a sigh,
And the regulator whispered, “Mate, I’m about to fry.”

Chorus
Oh, route it left, route it right,
Keep that ground plane nice and tight.
Vias dancing, traces bend,
DRC says, “Try again.”
Oh, copper here, silkscreen there,
Who put high-speed next to air?
Board layout’s a silly game,
But somehow we ship it all the same.

Verse 2
The datasheet said “simple”, which was clearly just a trap,
Forty-seven footnotes and a terrifying app.
I placed a cap “quite near enough”, or so I boldly thought,
Now the chip emits a squeal like a kettle overwrought.

Chorus
Oh, route it left, route it right,
Keep that ground plane nice and tight.
Vias dancing, traces bend,
DRC says, “Try again.”
Oh, decouple every pin,
Then decouple them again.
If it oscillates at night,
Blame the layout, not the spite.

Bridge
Silkscreen says “R13”, but the resistor’s gone abroad,
The test point’s under plastic and the USB is flawed.
The mounting holes are perfect, though they miss the case by three,
And the intern says, “It worked at home,” then quietly makes tea.

Verse 3
The autorouter had a go and made a modern art display,
A ninety-degree zigzag in a very cursed ballet.
The differential pair split up and now they barely speak,
While the clock line’s doing karaoke seven times a week.

Final Chorus
Oh, route it left, route it right,
Keep that ground plane nice and tight.
Vias dancing, traces bend,
DRC says, “Try again.”
Pour the copper, check the stack,
Send the gerbers, don’t look back.
When the magic smoke takes flight,
We’ll call it “revision two” tonight.

Is it really the right solution for you?

Imagine this:
Your CTO (or another C-level leader) leaves, and overnight you’re in a management vacuum.
The teams start to struggle, because there is no overall technical direction in place, and you personally do not have the capacity or ability to fill the gap, especially not covering the tech. 

The team still has work to deliver. Someone still has to make decisions. Vendors still need answers. Security and operational issues don’t pause. The board still expects updates. And yet the person who used to hold all of that context has walked out the door.

So you do what most companies do: you start looking for an interim.

But what if the “interim” model isn’t actually the best fit?

The gap isn’t always full-time

In a lot of companies, the real problem isn’t that you need a permanent replacement immediately.
The real problem is that you need experienced decision-making and leadership continuity while you stabilise things.

That can mean:

• keeping delivery moving without a new exec in place
• making sure priorities don’t drift
• reducing operational risk
• helping the team stay focused and calm
• creating a plan for the next 30–90 days
• supporting a hiring process properly, instead of rushing it

And in many cases, you don’t need that support 40–60 hours a week.
You need it consistently, but not constantly.

A fractional executive fills the vacuum differently

A fractional portfolio executive is a senior leader who steps in on a part-time basis and takes ownership of the “executive-shaped” work that still needs doing.

They’re not a consultant who writes a report and disappears. They’re also not staff augmentation.
They’re there to:

• lead decisions and create clarity
• unblock execution
• work with the team in the real world (not in theory)
• support stakeholders, investors, and the board
• stabilise operations while you figure out the long-term plan

The key difference is that it’s structured as ongoing leadership support, with a cadence, not a full-time role by default.

When fractional makes sense

Fractional leadership is often the right move when:

• you need continuity after a departure
• you’re hiring, but don’t want to rush the wrong person in
• the team needs direction and alignment more than “more hands”
• you’re in a regulated context and can’t afford drift
• reliability is shaky and incidents are starting to distract the organisation
• delivery is happening, but it’s not predictable
• your business is growing, and your current operating model is getting stretched

It also serves well when you need support across multiple areas (technology, operations, security, sometimes HR), but it is not enough to justify separate full-time hires.

What fractional engagement can look like in practice

This isn’t about parachuting in and trying to “run the show”. The goal is to stabilise, set direction, and make the team stronger.

A typical engagement might involve:

• an initial discovery phase (what’s happening, what’s stuck, what’s risky)
• a clear 30/60/90-day plan of action to get unstuck and get things flowing.
• a simple weekly cadence with leadership and team touchpoints
• decision support for architecture, delivery, hiring, and risk
• help creating an operating rhythm: ownership, metrics, and follow-through
• clean handover when the time is right — either to a new hire or an internal leader

That last part matters. Fractional should leave the company in a better place than it found it, not dependent on an external person.

What it’s not

It’s worth being clear about what this is not:

• It’s not paying for a permanent C-level seat without commitment.
• It’s not a slide deck and a set of recommendations.
• It’s not a ticket-taking role or “extra developer capacity”.
• It’s not taking ownership away from founders or the team.

Fractional leadership works best when it supports decision-making and execution, while ownership stays where it belongs.

A good question to ask yourself:

If you’re in that vacuum right now, or you can see it coming, do you need the experienced guidance, continuity and a clear plan while you stabilise now, and decide what to do next, giving you proper time to find the right long-term solution, without pressure? 

If you find yourself in this very position, let’s talk!
Book a meeting with us – click the link!

Have you ever had the problem where you quickly need to know what IP does a container use when running in the ECS?

Well, here’s one for that… 

• Upload to your cloudshell. 
• run chmod +x ecs2ip.sh
• then, execute such as ./ecs2ip.sh dev or ./ecs2ip.sh dev 'container-name'

#!/bin/bash

CLUSTER="$1"
SEARCH="$2"

if [ -z "$CLUSTER" ] 
then
    echo "Usage: $0  ['optional search phrase']"
    exit 1
fi

# Change to match your region, or add as an argument... 
REGION=eu-west-1

TASK_ARNS=$(aws ecs list-tasks \
  --cluster "$CLUSTER" \
  --desired-status RUNNING \
  --region "$REGION" \
  --query 'taskArns' \
  --output text)

[ -z "$TASK_ARNS" ] && echo "No running tasks found" && exit 0

printf '%s\n' $TASK_ARNS | xargs -n100 | while read -r CHUNK; do
  aws ecs describe-tasks \
    --cluster "$CLUSTER" \
    --region "$REGION" \
    --tasks $CHUNK \
    --output json \
  | jq -r '
      .tasks[] as $t
      | (
          $t.attachments[]
          | select(.type=="ElasticNetworkInterface")
          | .details[]
          | select(.name=="privateIPv4Address")
          | .value
        ) as $ip
      | $t.containers[].name as $c
      | "container=\($c) ip=\($ip) taskArn=\($t.taskArn)"
    '
done 2>&1 > /tmp/ecslist.txt 

if [ -z "$SEARCH" ]  
then
   cat /tmp/ecslist.txt 
else
   grep "$SEARCH" /tmp/ecslist.txt 
fi

rm /tmp/ecslist.txt

The output would look something like: 

[cloudshell-user@ip-*****~]$ ./ecs2ip.sh dev container-name
container=container-name ip=10.0.0.1 taskArn=arn:aws:ecs:eu-west-1:**************:task/dev/****…***
container=container-name ip=10.0.0.2 taskArn=arn:aws:ecs:eu-west-1:**************:task/dev/****…***

Njoy!

Every now and then, one may wish to have had a simple script to check out or
update all the github repos you have, at once, using a single command. 

This can be for the reason of backups, or simply, check out new ones that you don’t have etc,
or, keeping a local up-to-date copy of everything. 

Well, I wrote a similar little script some time back for BitBucket.
(http://emberlabs.tech/2023/05/08/easily-mirror-a-bitbucket-repo/)

This should work just fine on pretty much any Linux or Mac install (or similar with a bash). 

Nuf of the talk! Show me the code!! =D

#!/bin/bash
# GH Mass checkout. 
# V 1.0 - 2025-11-23 Spruce
# Prerequisites: curl and jq
# Place your GH PAT in ~/.gitpat (contents / read-only needed)
# Relies on SSH for cloning/pull, add your public key to GH. 

ORG="[Your ORG name here]"
PAT="[Your GH PAT]"
CDIR="$(pwd)"

if [ "${PAT}" == "" ] 
then
    if [ -e ~/.gitpat ] 
    then 
        PAT="$(grep github ~/.gitpat | head -1)"
    else
        echo "No PAT available."
		echo "Create a PAT (Profile -> Settings -> Developer settings -> PAT"
		echo "Select fine-grained,  account/org, and all repos, then select contents with read-only."
        exit 1
    fi
fi

function GetRepoLists {
    echo ""
    echo -n "Updating the repolists : "  
    rm -f repolist.*
    for page in $(seq 1 20) ; do
        echo -n "${page} "
        curl -s \
            -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
            -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
            -H "Authorization: Bearer ${PAT}" \
            "https://api.github.com/orgs/${ORG}/repos?per_page=100&page=${page}" \
            | jq -r '.[].ssh_url' > repolist.${page}
        if [ ! -s "repolist.${page}" ]
        then
            rm -f "repolist.${page}"
            break
        fi
    done
    echo ""

    cat repolist.* > repolist
    rm -f repolist.*
}


function ClonePull {
    mkdir -p ${ORG}

    while IFS= read -r URL; do
        repo="${URL##*/}"
        repobase="${repo%.git}"
        if [ -e "${ORG}/${repobase}" ]
        then
            echo "Updating ${ORG}/${repobase}" 
            cd ${ORG}/${repobase}
            git pull
            cd ${CDIR}
        else
            echo "Cloning  ${URL}"
            cd ${ORG} 
            git clone ${URL}
        fi
    done < "./repolist"
}

function GitExec {
	GITCMD="$1"
	cd ${ORG}
	for repo in *
	do
		echo "Executing ${GITCMD} in ${ORG}/${repo}" 
		cd ${CDIR}/${ORG}/${repo}
		git ${GITCMD}
		cd ${CDIR}
    done 
}

# --- Actions -------------------------------------------------------

case "$1" in
    full)
        GetRepoLists
        ClonePull
        ;;
    pull)
        GitExec "pull"
        ;;
    fetch)
        GitExec "fetch"
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage:"
        echo " "
	echo "       full      Update existing and clone new repos."
        echo "       fetch     Execute a fetch on all existing repos."
	echo "       pull      Execute a pull on all existing repos."
    ;; 
esac

Njoy!!

A look at Dwejra – Gozo’s inland “lake”.

Njoy!!

Btw…
Quick view from Xmas/NY Gozo 2024!

 

A short clip from the first flights with the new Mini Pro 4 on the outskirts of the office.

Chris Sprucefield
Pink October talk at Glitnor Group.