Laura Cristina Massaglia

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ASSIGNMENTS

output Devices

This week's assignment was:

     - To add an output device to a microcontroller board that we previously designed and program it to do something.

    - Measure the power consumption of an output device.

Desinging And Milling Microcontroller Board

I decided to work with LED. I wanted to make something with my name, more specific, with the first three letters of my name LAU.I used a piece of paper to
draw a few rough sketches to see the best way to lay out the LED lights for the lettering.

Letter L = 4 LEDs (pin 6)
Letter A = 6 LEDs (pin 10)
Letter U = 7 LEDs (pin 11)

This also allowed me to have a better understanding on how the lettering and LED design would look once I started to design it using the Eagle program.After a few rough sketches, I realized that I needed 17 LED’S. I decided to use white LED’s for my lettering. After I chose my design and LED’s I started drawing my board using the Eagle program.

Note: I describe how to use eagle and all the after steps in week 6 (Make blue link to week 6), if you have any doubts on how to use eagle click on the
Week 6.





I first started with designing the schematic by putting the resistors in series using eagle as you can see in the above picture. I gave names based on the letter and number of LED’S, for example: L1 first resistor of the letter L. After I finished the schematic, I switch to board on eagle to connect the components, as you can see in the image below.



In the image below, you can see where I placed each component.


When I design the board, I didn’t put some resistors as needed. So, when I was soldering I added the resistors to the board, it worked perfectly.

Then I exported the file as a png (file > export > image). Made sure the settings were set to MONOCHROME and 500 DPI. This will export an image with white traces. I also made sure the color mode was set to greyscale (image > mode > greyscale). Then I exported the Dimension layer for milling the outside of the board.

Note: Always remember that the Modela cuts out the dark and white areas. Then I generated the interior and exterior of my board using gimp.


The components I used:
17 white LED’s
1 x Attiny 44
1 x capacitor 1uF
3 x Resistor 100 Ω
1 x Resistor 10 kΩ
3 x Resistor 49.9 Ω
1 x 2x3 pin header
1 x pin header
1 x resonator 20MHz


The results were perfect and as you can see in the image above the LAU is designed to perfection at the top, and below is my board as the machine works. I then soldered on the components and contacted output device to the microcontroller board.




Programing Board

First I wrote the program in the Arduino IDE. I checked the arduino pin reference for each microctroler pin. The program is pretty simple, and lights on and off each letter, by “digitalwrite” and “delay” routines.  I commented the programming with the function of each line.
I connected the ISP programmer to the board, and followed the process to load it into the microcontroller. Make sure your Arduino IDE is set to program the aTTiny, as I mentioned in the “Embedded Programming” assignment and in the following page: http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695

If you have any doubts about how to program the board click on the link:

http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695

The next thing I had to do was program the board using Arduino. Below are pictures of what the programing looks like. My first initial thought and attempt a sequence in which the L first turned on, then the A and then finally the U. After the first initial sequence of the LEDs turning on I then wanted all the LED lettering to turn on all together. It didn’t work and I was very disappointed. My instructor told me that my programing was correct, so I started to try to find out what was causing the error. My primary thoughts were, that if my programing was correct the error had to be caused by the resonator not working or the tracks connecting to the micro controller were too thin. I checked for errors using a tool called a multimeter. This tool is used to measure current, resistance, or voltage. After testing, I came to the conclusion that the resonator was working and the tracks were not too thin. This made me realize that it had to be something else.

Bellow is my Ardruino and my programming:



After checking over my board I realized I had put on a resistor that was 10 ohs instead of 10K . The resistors look exactly the same just have a different output. This was the error that caused the LEDs not to turn on.
I changed the resistor using the hot air to remove the first one. Then soldered the 10K resistor, programmed it again and it worked perfect, as showed in the video above, also in a picture below:

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/s56dioSO_9w



Project Files:

  
  LEDs (Arduino)
  
  Board
  
  Schematic
  
  Traces
  
  Outline

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