Documentation

What is SolderPad?

SolderPad is a place to share, discover and collaborate on electronics projects. We offer free hosting for Open Source Hardware projects with explicit licensing. It's not intended to be used as an all-purpose content hosting site.

Many projects are a mixture of hardware and software and it's fine to host both of these on SolderPad. When it comes to software only projects we're big fans of GitHub.

How do I find projects?

You can currently explore projects via tags or view them all. Full text search is planned.

How do I download a project's files?

You need to use Git to clone a copy of the project's repository. E.g.:

git clone git://solderpad.com/solderpad/arduino-uno.git

The URL you need to use will be displayed in the Files section on the project page.

What is Git?

Git is a popular Distributed Version Control System (DVCS). If you're new to Git there are plenty of great resources on the Web. For example:

• The official documentation
• The Pro Git book
• A step-by-step, hands-on guide: Git Immersion
• GitHub's Introduction To Git
• Git from the bottom-up: PDF
• The Git Magic book
• The Visual Git Guide

Do I need an account?

Only if you want to add projects.

How do I add a project?

If you haven't already, you need to register and to ensure that your profile is configured with your SSH public key. This is required so that you can use Git to push updates to SolderPad.

From the homepage you then select to add a project and will be prompted to enter details. Once the project has been created you can use Git to add the project files.

I'm getting an error when I push to SolderPad

See the help for this.

How do I add images and a bill of materials to a project page?

You need to create a .solderpad directory in the root of the project repository, add the images and BoM to it and push to SolderPad.

I'm not sure which licence to select

See the help for project licensing.

Can I leave SolderPad and take my projects with me?

Yes. One of the great things about Git is the way that it supports decentralised working and each copy, or clone, of a repository is complete. You are free to leave at any time and to take your commit history and any branches etc. with you. This is one reason why we are working to store project meta-data in the Git repository.

Can I host a project on SolderPad and another git-based service at the same time?

Absolutely.

How do I collaborate with other people?

• An individual project may easily incorporate changes from other people across the Web using git pull and push.
• A project may have multiple collaborators, allowing a number of SolderPad users to push to a repository (drop us a line).
• A SolderPad user may converted into an organisation allowing a group of SolderPad users to create and manage projects on behalf of a business or open source project.

Open Hardware or Open Source Hardware?

We don't mind whether you prefer to use the Open Hardware or Open Source Hardware definition, and are happy with either.

If you are confused by the above, don't worry. The main thing is that your project employs a licence which complies with the Open Source Definition.

Getting Help

If you have any questions or feedback you might like to use the SolderPad Google Group. Alternatively you can drop us a line and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.