How To Make Almost Anything Class
Lassiter's WEEK #6 Assignment
The assignment for this week was to desgin, layout, process, mill, stuff, and program a new and
improved hello world board-- this time it should echo and blink-- blink rate dependent upon the
echo. I found the board layout difficult, I couldn't seem to get a zener diode, a capacitor and two
10K resistors on without putting in a 0 ohm jump. I also found (with a lot of help from an
unnamed TA) that I had to route a few paths under other circuits. But the board looked good,
and I stuffed it without incident. Made the cables-- and let me tell you that was about as painful
as sticking a needle in my eye. 8 tries for the serial cable-- none worked and in the end Patrik took
pity on me and made me a serial cable.
Here are pictures of my board layout and schematic-- lass.brd and lass.sch
After finally getting a good serial cable and a good programming cable, I was unable to program the
board. We made a few corrections (thank you Seth!) to my program-- I didn't know how to identify
or number the pins-- but it seems my program should work. And even though my soldering appreared to
be quite good, in the end, it seems that the microprocessor didn't work. In attempting to replace
the microprocessor, I pulled both the microprocessor and the copper traces off of the board. Thus I
had to start over again this morning. Doubtful that I will have a working programmed board by class
time. We'll see.
Really glad I know how to make cables, but really really would appreciate a working set of cables
by the programming area, and also would appreciate it if you could find a source to purchase these
extremely small cables already made. I did waste a full day trying to make a working serial cable--
too small for these old eyes.
UPDATE on Final Project
This week Patrik and I tore up a couple of old speakers and ripped out the rare earth magnets to
use in testing motor designs. Also ordered other magnets, and springs to see if we can get a linear
motor model working this week. Unfortunately there was little time to progress more on my final
project last week. This week I will work on the design for the telescoping mechanism and try to get
a version of a linear motor running.
Am worried now about the programming for Heart Throb. How do I program the transmit and receive?
