Project 05
Designing a PCB Board using CAD and Adding a Button to Control a Light Emitting Diode (in series with a current-limiting resistor)
- Objective:
1. To design a 3D PCB boardand mill with KiCAD and mill it .
2. To solder the necessary components.
- Materials:
(a) KiCAD software to sketch, footprint, and design the 3D PCB model with necessary components;(b) Roland SRM-20 milling machine.
- Fabrication:
(a) Library download: The "fab.lib" and associated footprint libraries were downloaded from the CBA website. The power library was not available; however, Demir (from Architecture group) helped me out.
(b) KiCAD 3D design: The 3D modelling involved using the schematic interface first followed by the footprinting interfacing.
I planned not use any "vias" for my design and rather use the "jumper resistors (resistance: 0 ohm)" in my design. Once the "unrouted" tracks were shown to be zero, I understood my tracing among the footprints were completed.
(c) Exporting the file to Inkscape: According to Zach's recitation video, I adjusted the properties of the svg. image files for both the traces and outline.
(d) Soldering: Finally, the circuit components were soldered using the solder musk, soldering iron, etc.
(e) Bootloading (code): I plan to test my circuit using a bootloading programer.
- Fabrication Mishaps:
(a) 1st mistake - Forgetting to Invert in the Mods: I forgot that all the "white traces/marks" will be cut only if I choose the "Invert" option for cutting the "Trace" as well as the "Outline".
As a result, the milling machine milled my traces instead.
(b) 2nd mistake - The 1/64th end mills were not properly cutting deep enough.
(c) 3rd mistake - I wanted to do the soldering on my incorrect PCB board so that others can get chance in using the machine.
And also wanted to see what are the challenges I will face during the soldering, mostly with soldering the small components.
The iron melts were all over my circuit. So, I tried to suck them using the "musk thread", but it was not working fast.
So, I planned to use the "heat gun" to expedite it. But "swelled" my PCB board at one corner. Then I stopped using it.
However, finally I milled the correct PCB with proper milling depth, when everyone was done with using the PCB milling machine, on Oct 12 at 10pm.
Media associated with the 3D printing project
Bootloading preparation and setting up Arduino MegaTinyCore (working environment):
(a) Thanking Thais in finding resources - I was looking for previous years' or any tutorial by FabLabs on how to bootload the ATTiny142 that has a 6-pin header architecture.
I want to thank my colleague Thais. They really tried to help me out and gave me some good directions towards findig some good resources.
Further, I found the following sources quite helpful:
(1) Russian Wu's work from week 09 of Embedded Programming
(2) Adrian Torres's work from week 08 of Embedded Programming
(3) Fablab Kannai's (in Fab Academy) article on Arduino megaTinycore
(4) Electronics-lab's article on Getting Started With The New ATtiny Chips – Programming The Microchip’s 0-Series And 1-Series ATtiny With The Arduino IDE
(5) YouTube Tutorial from Aalto Fablab entitled "Setting up UPDI Programming Toolkit with Arduino, megaTinyCore and pyupdi
My progress by the end of this week:
(1) I downloaded the 1.8.16 Arduino UNO IDE (Integrated development environment).
(2) Then I added the "MegaTinyCore" via the Arduino Board Manager by installing "megaTinyCore by Spence Konde" from its search bar.
(3) Finally, I was able to see the "ATTiny142" in the boar list of the Arduino.
(4) I couldn't do the bootloading yet but I plan to complete it. I plan to figure out the solution and apply it in the "Embedded Programming" project after a week.
