Lmst

Just received our first prototype of a Nickel-metal Hydride battery charger with a USB plug. This board is made to charge from 1 to 6 cells in series and supports a thermister for sensing overheating batteries.

This circuit design is planned to be a part of a pen-like stylus with a camera and haptic feedback for blind people to feel visual art.

https://codeberg.org/bcecoop/bce-pcb-bq25172dsgr

#blind #a11y #accessibility #ee #pcb #fosh #foss #bce #prototype #maker #nimh #battery #charger

A PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with 4 prototyping holes on the left and 4 on the right. A female USB-C connector is at the bottom and three chips are across the top.

We've just received our first 100 of our Boost Converter Voltage Regulator. Time to start testing and adding to our inventory.

https://bce.center/products/BCE-TPS61299YBHR

#blind #a11y #accessibility #ee #maker #fosh #foss #freehardware #freesoftware

5 roughly 70mm by 70mm PCB (Printed Circuit Board) panels, each containing 20 smaller identical circuit boards, each in a 4 by 5 grid. A total of 100 identical small circuit boards are shown.

Just placed an order for a new prototype PCB (Printed Circuit Board) for makers. This one charges NiMH (Nickel-metal Hydride) rechargeable batteries with charging speed options, support for up to 6 cells, temperature sensor, and USB-C plug.

This is a step toward our first accessibility product for blind people to feel visual art through a haptic pen-like stylus interface.

https://codeberg.org/bcecoop/bce-pcb-bq25172dsgr

#blind #accessibility #a11y #pcb #prototype #fosh #foss #freehardware #freesoftware #copyleft #ee

I've gone through @bce 's product purchase process, including product browsing, configuration, adding to cart, viewing cart, and checkout pages to make sure they are accessible to screen reader users. I've replaced all tables with hierarchical headings, and made sure all inputs are labelled. I'm testing with LibreWolf on Debian with Orca. If any blind users out there could test with their setups and have any feedback, it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Here is the link to the top level products page:
https://bce.center/products

CC: @jackf723

Note that once this web software is stable, it will be released as FOSS to assist other blind entrepreneurs as well.

#blind #a11y #accessibility #fosh #foss #freehardware #freesoftware

New Product:

*2 AAAA Series Battery Holder*

https://bce.center/products/BCE-BHAAAA2S

Hold 2 AAAA batteries in series for your maker project. Have this battery case in a custom color of your choice.

This product is a step toward our future product for allowing a blind person to feel visual art through a haptic stylus pen-like interface.

#fosh #freehardware #foss #freesoftware #blind

Two plastic halves of a battery holder that contains two AAAA batteries arranged in series with 2 wires coming out of the left side. One half of the case is designed with grooves to slide along the other half to close the cylindrical case.

New Product:

*Boost Converter Voltage Regulator*

https://bce.center/products/BCE-TPS61299YBHR

Take a low voltage battery input and supply one of 21 different regulated voltages for your maker project, including 1.8v, 3.3v, 4.2v, 5v, or 5.5v among others.

We are planning to use this power supply in our future product for blind people to feel visual art through a pen-like stylus haptic interface.

#fosh #freehardware #bce #foss #freesoftware #ee #pcb #maker #blind

I'm looking at a potential camera for our first accessibility tool. It's a 60 FPS 640x480 color camera with a parallel output. If I'm not mistaken, it looks like the specifications for configuring it are publicly disclosed in the available datasheet.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/onsemi/ASX340AT3C00XPED0-TPBR/15860677

#ee #camera #cmos #pcb #fosh #foss

We've completed testing our initial prototype batch of our battery-powered boost converter power supplies. We've found and fixed a bug that we have confirmed with a PCB hack. We've submitted a new revision for production, based on our new v0.0.2 design:

https://codeberg.org/bcecoop/bce-pcb-tps61299ybhr/src/branch/main

We're planning to use this power supply in our pen-like stylus product to allow blind people to feel visual art.

#fosh #foss #freesoftware #freehardware #nonprofit #pcb #ee #a11y #accessibility #blind

Just spent the day setting up some devops scripts for bringing up a branded and secured self-hosted Jitsi Meet video conferencing server droplet on digitalocean for business meetings for the FOSH accessibility non-profit, @bce .

#foss #fosh #freesoftware #boycottgoogle #boycottapple #boycottmicrosoft #antimonopoly #jitsi #security #privacy #devops #digitalocean #droplet

Just received our second manufactured prototype PCB (Printed Circuit Board). This one is for a regulated power supply chip that we plan to use in our first accessibility product for blind people to feel visual art through a haptic pen-like stylus interface.

https://codeberg.org/bcecoop/bce-pcb-tps61299ybhr

#fosh #freehardware #bce #bcecoop #foss #freesoftware #blind #lowvision #a11y #accessibility #ee #pcd

A green PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with a vertical column of 3 holes on the left and another vertical column of 3 holes on the right, labelled from top to bottom on the left as "VIN", "NC", "EN", and from top to bottom on the right as "GND", "VOUT", and "VSEL". The label "BCE Coop Inc" is printed in the right upper center. There are 5 rectangular chips on the board, including one very small rectangular prism in the middle, one large rectangular prism in the upper left, and two medium sized rectangular prisms, one on the left and another on the right. The two similar rectangular prisms are labelled "20μF".

Just received the first manufactured prototype PCB (Printed Circuit Board) for an SRAM chip that we plan to use in our first accessibility product for blind people to feel visual art through a haptic pen-like stylus interface.

#blind #pcb #accessibility #electricalengineering #ee #maker #a11y #sram #fosh

A photo of a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with one square chip in the middle connected to labeled breadboarding holes along the left and right edges. "BCE Coop Inc" is printed at the top of the board.

Just bought a modular and repairable bluetooth speaker for when I'm working at the plant nursery. Happy to say it just worked beautifully directly out of the box! Free Open Source tech doesn't mean it's complicated. Glad to support this company in a market awash with short-sighted tech https://www.shift.eco/en/shiftsound-sp #Shift #FOSH #RightToRepair

I'm creating 3D printed Braille business card software, and I have a question about "computer Braille" as discussed in this document by Humanware:

https://www.humanware.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Computer-Braille-Cheat-Sheet_A11y.pdf

My understanding is that there are special ways to input Braille. For writing an email address on my business card, I imagine it would be nice to use the 1 cell computer form of the "at" symbol (@), which level 1 Braille specifies it as a 2 cell token. Also, the idea of using pin 7 to specify capitalization sounds really nice. If I use these techniques on my Braille business card, would they be understood by a person reading Braille?

(I have a Braille display, but I haven't learned how to use it yet.)

#blind #braille #computerbraille #3dprint #3dprinting #foss #fosh #freesoftware

We've just placed an order for our second PCB (Printed Circuit Board). This one is for a battery powered voltage regulator that we plan to use in our first accessibility product for blind people to feel visual art through a haptic pen-like stylus interface.

https://codeberg.org/bcecoop/bce-pcb-tps61299ybhr

#blind #accessibility #a11y #pcb #prototype #fosh #foss #freehardware #freesoftware #copyleft

A 3D rendering of a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with 3 breadboarding holes on the left and 3 on the right with solder pads for 1 inductor (1uH) and 2 capacitors (20 uF).

We've just placed an order for our first PCB (Printed Circuit Board). This one is for a 16 megabit SRAM chip that we plan to use in our first accessibility product for blind people to feel visual art through a haptic pen-like stylus interface.

https://codeberg.org/bcecoop/bce-pcb-rmlv1616a

#blind #accessibility #a11y #pcb #sram #prototype #fosh #foss #freehardware #freesoftware #copyleft

A 3D rendering of a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) with an outline for one chip in the middle labeled SRAM1 and two vertical columns of breadboardable pin holes along the edges of the board, 24 along the left and 24 along the right. The board is labeled "BCE Coop Inc" at the top, and "BCE-RMLV1616-1" at the bottom.

I got an idea. FOSH could solve the obsolescence problem. We can design and build technology to be long lasting and distribute it according to need. #FOSH #obsolescence #technology

@gedankenstuecke

This is a long read, but I think it has a much more coherent take on the idea of creating ethical, political, or anti-capitalistic software licenses:

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/mar/17/copyleft-ethical-source-putin-ukraine/

#nccc #ppl #agpl #gpl #foss #fosh #freesoftware #freehardware #license #licensing #softwarelicense #softwarelicensing #copyleft #copyfarleft

Handling credit card payment processing for the @bce website is a major milestone completed.

There are still lots of accessibility workflow issues to work through on the webpage, but I can work through those concurrently.

After spending some time with my family next week, I should be able to focus on actual FOSH product development.

❤️ ✊ 💪

#blind #nonprofit #fosh #foss #webdev #creditcardprocessing #paymentprocessing #bce #bcecoop #bcecoopinc

Donation payment processing is live on the website! We have three tiers of tax-deductible donation currently supported: $10, $100, and $1000.

https://bce.center/products

Please let us know your feedback! ❤️ ✊ 💪

#blind #501c3 #donate #nonprofit #fosh #foss #a11y #accessibility

A white coffee cute on a saucer with cinnamon on a foamy top.

I'm going to be traveling off of the grid, visiting family, the week starting Nov. 17.

These first two weeks, working on the Brain Computer Enterprises, Cooperative Inc. ( @bce ) startup have been super inspiring.

First focus is getting the website up as an international presence. Next, we will start prototyping PCBs for piecemeal breadboarding the product. We plan for the blind maker community to follow along, making the product at home along with us as we progress.

More soon! ❤️ ✊ 💪

#blind #bce #bcecoop #bcecoopinc #accessibility #pcb #website #webdev #international #startup #fosh #foss #maker

#fosh

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