Helloboard - MAS.863

Hello World PCB - Using Eagle + cad.py + Modela Mini Mil

hello schematic

hello board

salut schematic

salut board

Designing and printing the Hello circuit board has been an interesting process involving many try and error cycles and lead to a better understanding of how the Modela Mini milling machine operates. I used Eagle to design the circuit - hello.serial.45.brd and hello.serial.45.sch provided on the class web site and the modified version containing an LED and a switch which I named salut.serial.45.brd and hello.serial.45.sch. The design part itself has not been very difficult - first make a schematic then route the board. I then exported the circuit board as a png and imported it into cad.py.

The dimensions in cad.py had translated properly so I set the zmin to -0.005 and zmax to 0.05, made the contours and sent the job to the Modela Mini. After few minutes, I've noticed that the jumper resistor pads were not printed properly - appearing like a continuous rectangle. This has been caused by a low 150 dpi when exported from eagle. I've fixed the problem within eagle and re-sent the job for print. Everything seemed to go right at the beginning but soon discovered that the left side of the board was not itched according to the zmin-zmax specified within cad.py... hmmmm.... I first questioned the orientation of the Modela's ground plane, maybe lower the left side of the plane.... But how? I then had a look at the file generated by cad.py which is sent to the Modela - an .rml file - very interesting file to look at - all the machine commands are there. In the text file, the zmin and zmax specified in cad.py where erroneous; PZ50,50 should have been PZ-5,50... haha! ... that's the problem. Testing the output of cad.py lead me to no constructive results, the zmin and zmax coordinates were still not translated properly, so I decided to edit the .rml manualy setting PZ to the desired values. I've asked students from CBA how to send the rml file to the Modela and the answer was really simple - push the file to the serial port!!! Great! so % cat salut.rml > /dev/ttyS0. bingo! That's all there is (I love things when they are simple)!!

	Designing and printing the Hello circuit board has been an interesting process involving many try and error cycles and lead to a better understanding of how the Modela Mini milling machine operates. I used Eagle to design the circuit - hello.serial.45.brd and hello.serial.45.sch provided on the class web site and the modified version containing an LED and a switch which I named salut.serial.45.brd and hello.serial.45.sch. The design part itself has not been very difficult - first make a schematic then route the board. I then exported the circuit board as a png and imported it into cad.py.
	The dimensions in cad.py had translated properly so I set the zmin to -0.005 and zmax to 0.05, made the contours and sent the job to the Modela Mini. After few minutes, I've noticed that the jumper resistor pads were not printed properly - appearing like a continuous rectangle. This has been caused by a low 150 dpi when exported from eagle. I've fixed the problem within eagle and re-sent the job for print. Everything seemed to go right at the beginning but soon discovered that the left side of the board was not itched according to the zmin-zmax specified within cad.py... hmmmm.... I first questioned the orientation of the Modela's ground plane, maybe lower the left side of the plane.... But how? I then had a look at the file generated by cad.py which is sent to the Modela - an .rml file - very interesting file to look at - all the machine commands are there. In the text file, the zmin and zmax specified in cad.py where erroneous; PZ50,50 should have been PZ-5,50... haha! ... that's the problem. Testing the output of cad.py lead me to no constructive results, the zmin and zmax coordinates were still not translated properly, so I decided to edit the .rml manualy setting PZ to the desired values. I've asked students from CBA how to send the rml file to the Modela and the answer was really simple - push the file to the serial port!!! Great! so % cat salut.rml > /dev/ttyS0. bingo! That's all there is (I love things when they are simple)!!