Ugh, an intensive day with too much sitting, fully immersed in circuit work.
The ramp up with #KiCad tools was very smooth. I didn't find any roadblocks in #schematic capture, part coding, #PCB layout, nor cleaning up DRCs. The tools have come a long way since my last use in 2021! Pleased!
A scan through manufacturability tomorrow and the full cycle is complete. Yay #FOSS.
Completed a full design cycle with #KiCad today. Generated the "final" gerbers and drill files about six times, as one does as you keep coming up with little changes (forgot mounting holes!) But the CAM side was very smooth and easy. All around happy with the tool and result.
Zipped up files and trying #PCBWay as vendor this time. I see it's about 3x the cost of my last order with them (in 2020). Both manufacturing cost and shipping are steeper now. :(
insert standard run-of-the-mill #PCB assembly steps here
Paste, place, reflow the one side.
Solder the other side by hand (because I didn't have a hot-air station at home and was impatient).
Five months later, I finally got around to bringing up my four channel driver board so I can control X and Y at the same time on these. With a hole in the middle of the PCB, this seems like it could actually work as a back-illuminated microscope stage. Not as good as an OpenFlexure probably? But it's just a PCB, simple 3D printed part, and $3 worth of magnets (well, and drive electronics!). The software driving it is #rustlang, of course!
Are you working with an KiCad or Fritzing and want to support them? Select the Development Contribution option during checkout. This will add a €2 charge to your order, we will double this and transfer it to the developer of the tool you used.
I'm wanting to polish my #embedded skills, but I want to make sure I don't miss critical areas. The main focus I want to make sure I'm good at atm is #PCB design and relevant #electrical eng.
I highly prefer thorough online articles, but books are also fine. I prefer avoiding YT videos because I do lots of back tracking to reinforce understanding.
'A team led by researchers at the University of Washington developed a new PCB that performs on par with traditional materials and can be recycled repeatedly with negligible material loss. Researchers used a solvent that transforms a type of vitrimer — a cutting-edge class of sustainable polymers — to a jelly-like substance without damaging it, allowing the solid components to be plucked out for reuse or recycling.'
We will be @hackaday Berlin together with
Würth Elektronik 🥳 Do you have a PCB design you want to show off at the event? DM us your project link, and we will bring a few copies of your board to the event!
Finally #JLCPCB has announced the availability of multi-colored PCBs! (Something that may interest @rc2014, btw). The best part of it is I can finally talk about it, since I was informed this was going to be offered around 2022, but the information was embargoed until the official announcement 😅 #pcb#multicolorpcb#pcbdesign
What interesting style options can I make for a keyboard #PCB?
I mean in the way I place components and traces.
Current ideas:
Be hyper strict on horizontal top, vertical bottom (or maybe a 45 degree rotation of that). Although this will look a little odd in use as this is a split keyboard and I'm intending to use the one PCB flipped for the second side.
The last components arrived today.
And after for 4 hours of tests, experiments and reading datasheets and obscure forums, I made it works :)
(gipio15 needs to be pulled low, to boot).
I still got some noise on the data line. I'll figure that out tomorrow.
Took me 2 hours, and more tests, experiments and obscure forum but I solve the glitch \o/
It had nothing (almost) to do with the data line. The capacitor on the ldo was just too small (despite being the one suggested on the datasheet).
Next step is to order some bigger smd capacitors, and add the missing resistor to the design and we should be good on that part of the project :)
And we're back in business :)
The plan is to replace the electrolityc capacitor with the ceramic I received today in the previous pcb and check it still works fine.
If that's good, I'll have to desolder everything and solder it back on the new version of the pcb.
As I should have expected, things did not really went according to the plan yesterday :)
First I broke the copper pad when desoldering the capacitor making it difficult to test that board with the new ceramic capacitor.
So I did not, and, naively, went directly to solder the new board
Obviously, it did not work. The glitch I thought the capacitor would fix was back. Maybe it was not a capacity problem ?
After few hours of theories, experiments, failures I ended up stacking to capacitors and it works. Maybe it was a capacity problem ?
I guess I'll have to learn how capacitors really works, and the difference between each kind :) #pcb#LedClock#fail