PCB Fabrication

Assignment: make the FabISP in-circuit programmer

Logbook

This week assignment was fairly simple. Even with a micro-mill not operational, it was quite easy to mill the pcb using our Raptor large format CNC. It is not our first attempt at that here so it was straight forward. Using the PNG, I tranformed it in a PDF file that could be used with Aspire to create the toolpath. Using the same process as described during class it took a few minutes to mill the circuit, and a few more to cut it using a larger diameter tool. Now that was pretty easy. I then proceeded to test the paths using my multimeter, to be sure I would not spend an afternoon soldering stuff on a bad board.



Surface Mount Soldering


So for years, I limited myself to Through Hole circuit construction beacause I feared Solder Mount. Tiny parts seemed so tough to place and solder, by hand, not using a reflow oven. So I was not too sure about this part of the assignment. I planned to spend about 3 hours to build the entire circuit, composed of less than 20 components. Fool I was. In less than an hour, my circuit was soldered. It was very easy to firt "tack" the component in place using a tiny bit of solder (and flux!!) and then solder the opposite pin, or pad, then go back to the tack and solder it in place. I was rapidly impressed and pleased by the result. After each component was placed and soldered, I checked the circuit using the multimeter to be sure everything was in place.



AVR Programming


Oups! So we don't have access to an AVR Programmer. Raphaƫl and I have been researching ways to use and Arduino UNO to as an AVR programmer. This is still in progress so I will report on this later this week in the following section.



Update


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