Week 6: Electronics Production

How to Debug Almost Anything (with Anthony)

Here are some takeaways from the debugging recitation. Common hardware bugs include:
  1. milling issues / solder bridges
  2. cold joints (marked by being unshiny or having sharp edges) → causation and parameter tuning guide here
  3. orientations (check data sheets since there is no standard; sometimes divots indicate pin 1)
  4. connections
  5. power/GND shorts
Here are some miscellaneous tips: It is often helpful to backlight transparent FR1 boards to check that traces are milled out correctly. Continuity testing is also good to do before plugging your board into your computer as well as checking if 5V is connected to GND, 5V is connected to 3.3V, and 3.3V is connected to GND by checking resistances. It helps to test expected voltages as well. Capacitors may make multimeters behave misleadingly such that they measure current where there shouldn't be any. For more on test equipment (multimeters, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers), see Anthony's slides. There is I2C scanning code, discussion on setup specifics, and common hardware/software problems and next steps there too. Kapton tape is good for preventing shorts and isolating less temperature resistant components. If you want to do board surgery, here is a nice guide to using jumper wires for board surgery. Magnet wire can be used to connect traces, you just need to remove the insulating coating. Traces and bridges can be cut as needed.

Group Assignment: Electronics Production Design Rules

For the group assignment, we were tasked with characterizing the design rules for your in-house PCB production process and submitting a PCB design to a board house. More will be added here soon!

Revising Board Design (Coming Soon...)

Writing Code (Coming Soon...)

Milling (Coming Soon...)

Assembly (Coming Soon...)

Testing (Coming Soon...)