Week 05

Electronics Design


Milling Copper


I use to play with fairly expensive boards ($10K per board), so it was neat being able to work with a board that I wasn't afraid to mess up. Obviously wasting time was not on my agenda, but I did want to see and learn all that I could.



I had previously used the other mill machine for my programmer. I was excited that I had the opportunity to use the one that sounds like a mosquito for this project.


Once again I made sure that my material was not going to go anywhere.


Everything is loaded in, and heights were verified.


Just a quick look at milling clearances. Luckily the program looks at any areas where traces may not be of adequate size.



After figuring out all the parts I wanted, I was able to put a schematic together. I chose the XMEGA because as I move to my final project I figured I would need a few more inputs than the Tiny.



Ultimately I had to do some routing, and I ended up using a resistor as a jumper.


All loaded up and ready to go! Eagle was very easy to transfer over and was basically a 1-step process.


And away we go!


A very important step is to always clean up after yourself!


OH BOY! It worked!


Of course there is a little bit of clean up.


I took extremely fine grit sandpaper and gently removed the excess copper.


I definitely giggled when I used a spackle tool to pry my board off the base.


With the excess removed and the milling complete, the board really seems to be coming along.

Solder Adventures



I like to lay out as many of my components as possible. Unfortunately the capacitors are not visually different so I only put out a few of the resistors.



All the items I will need for a successful solder. I definitely ended up needing more, but this was a good start.



These resistors are mind-boggling miniscule. I tried so hard not to lose them and to keep a grip on them.



Of course my hands are not particularily steady, so wicking braid was used quite often...



Fortunately I was given the heads up that for my IC I would want to use solder paste.



Solder paste is wicked cool. Just make sure you have your proper PPE!



Aha! That's how this thing works!



Once all the components were on the board I wanted to program it.



After attempting to program the board through multiple different methods and with multiple different power sources I had to call it quits. Somewhere along the lines I had messed up a solder or design. This means my next one gets to be better!



At least the board looks fairly decent!



The Trona Pinnacles is a wonderful place to visit! Belle thinks so!