Homework
- Our homework was to mill and stuff a PCB, or "printed circuit board".
- NOT soldering......I love it and I'm still pretty good at it. Ha!
- Designing boards......not my strong suit at first. I struggled with Eagle, and ultimately had one connection that needed to be made but no trace was there. As you can see in the picture below, I used my SUPERIOR soldering skills to rig an alternate trace made of metal. I enjoyed this "fix" and it worked.
- Eagle software......It started off great and quickly went south. Being an electronics beginner, I don't have enough basic knowledge to understand how the components interact and whether or not my schematic and board are "right". I'm sure that will come in the upcoming weeks as I gain more experience with Eagle and electronics in general.
- I used Eagle. Scott helped us get started and become familiar with the software. I successfully installed the fab library, found the correct components, and placed them on the schematic. Adding the LED and push button were not hard. The problem came when I moved from the schematic to the board design. I kept using Auto Route and my design just kept getting more and more complicated. I struggled for hours and was able to develop a working board that would have had a trace on the underside.
- I decided, with advice of course, not to tackle that, so I edited my schematic and board.
Click for EchoHello board file
Click for EchoHello schematic file
Challenges
Designing