Our firmware and host application source have been public on GitHub since we started. We're now extending that to hardware — building the structure and documentation to publish schematics, board files, parts lists, and Gerbers alongside the code. It's a work in progress. In the meantime, if there's technical data you need — a schematic for a board you're troubleshooting, design files to start a variant of your own — ask us. We share it, and we don't ask for an NDA.
This isn't idealism. It's what a research instrument actually needs to be useful over a twenty-year lifetime in a lab that never stops changing.
Your experiment will outlive our documentation. Research instruments get repurposed. A source built for ion mobility ends up on a TOF. A pulse sequence written for one experiment becomes the backbone of a grad student's thesis three years later. When that happens, you need to know exactly what the hardware does — not what a datasheet claims it does.
Reproducibility requires disclosure. If your published method depends on a black-box controller, nobody can independently reproduce it. When the electronics are documented down to the schematic, your methods section can be complete.
Vendor risk is real. We are a small company. If GAA Custom Electronics ever ceases operation, our customers should not be left with an unmaintainable instrument. That's the reason the firmware is already public and the hardware is following, and it's why we don't treat design data as something to be protected from the people using it. Ask for what you need and we'll share it — no NDA, no negotiation.
Firmware and host application source are public on GitHub — no request needed. Hardware design data is being published there progressively. For anything not yet posted, tell us what you're working on and what would help, and we'll get it to you.
Publishing source code is straightforward — a repository, a commit, done. Publishing hardware is a different problem. Design files written for our own bench aren't self-explanatory to a stranger, and a folder of Gerbers isn't the same thing as something someone can actually build. Doing it properly means building the structure and organization to support it: consistent file formats, revision discipline, parts lists that stay current, and assembly notes written for someone who has never seen the board.
So we're working outward from the simple end. Discrete components first — vacuum feedthroughs, ion optics boards, things that stand alone and are easy to document completely. From there, into progressively more complex assemblies and eventually full systems. The long-range goal is a public design library complete enough that someone skilled in the art could build from it. We're not putting a date on that, because we'd rather publish it properly than publish it fast.
If there's a design you'd find useful published sooner rather than later, tell us. Prioritizing by what researchers actually want beats guessing — and if you've written documentation for a system you already run, we'd be glad to fold it in.
No account, no NDA, no purchase required. Hardware under CERN-OHL-W-2.0, firmware under MIT, the host application under GPL-3.0. Browse the code before you talk to us — and, increasingly, the hardware too.
We use standard, recognized open source licenses rather than terms of our own invention — because university legal offices reasonably ask for a specific identifier, and "we promise to be reasonable" isn't one.
| What | License | SPDX |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware design files Schematics, PCB layout, Gerbers, BOM |
CERN Open Hardware Licence v2 — Weakly Reciprocal | CERN-OHL-W-2.0 |
| Firmware Runs on GAACE controllers |
MIT License | MIT |
| Host application Cross-platform MIPS software |
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| Documentation Manuals, application notes |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 | CC-BY-4.0 |
What this permits. You may study, modify, manufacture, repair, and distribute these designs — including commercially — without asking us and without cost. No separate agreement with GAACE is required. If a board fails in ten years and we're not around, build another one.
What's required in return. If you distribute a product built on a modified version of one of our designs, you publish your modified design files under the same license. Changes to the surrounding product — the instrument our board sits inside — don't have to be published. That's the "weakly reciprocal" part, and it's deliberate: it means an instrument manufacturer can build our hardware into a commercial product without opening their entire design.
Trademarks are not licensed. "GAA Custom Electronics," "GAACE," "MIPS," and "Astraea" are our marks. You may accurately say your work is based on our design. You may not use our names or logo to identify your product, or in a way that implies we supplied or endorsed it. The engineering is free; the name isn't.
And a request that carries no legal weight: if you're manufacturing our designs commercially, we'd appreciate hearing from you first.
None of the above applies to custom development funded by a customer. That work belongs to the customer who paid for it, is typically covered by an NDA, and is never published here. Where GAACE funds development itself — which we often do when the result would be useful to other researchers, including upgrades that started as a customer request — the result is ours, and it goes out under the licenses above.
If your institution needs something these licenses don't cover, or has a procurement requirement we haven't anticipated, contact us. We'd rather have that conversation than have you quietly walk away.
Everything published is public and ungated. If what you need isn't up yet, tell us what you're working on — we'd rather have that conversation than have you go without. And if you're building something we should know about, our research programs are always open to collaborators.