Rachel Legerski - Fab Academy 2015

Electronic Production

Week 4 Assignment

The assignment for this week is to make the FabISP in-circuit programmer. That includes the following notes: David, Andy, Valentin hello.ISP.44.cad board components traces interior hello.ISP.44.res.cad board traces interior inventory microcontroller crystal USB connector ribbon connector Zener diode jumper firmware.zip USB power make clean make hex (sudo) make fuse (check programmer in Makefile, may need to repeat) (sudo) make program desolder SJ1 and SJ2 make IDC ISP cable, connecting header pin 1 to pin 1, check wires

Yikes! Another enormous challenge! I am hoping to make something like this:

Listening to the lecture this week caused me to sit and wonder how was I going to get this done? Looking at the end results is a bit intimidating. Can't wait to see how this works out!

So my goal for this week is to make a the FabISP in-circuit programmer. I looked over the options. Scott, our local instructor, tried to explain the differences between the boards. Being that everything is new to me, I really had a hard time deciding what to do. I finally selected the Andy board.

Struggles

Where to begin? This is my first time working with electronics. Soldering is new to me. I've never used the Eagle program. The vocabulary is confusing. Trying to follow directions exactly and finding out that there are mistakes beyond your control. How can you do everything "right" and still not experience success? Though we experienced some successful moments, this week really was a struggle for me. I was definitely not a happy camper!

Grit and Determination

The first boards that we milled on the Modela had problems. We found traces that didn't quite belong or seemed to go no where. We had some dots milled onto the boards that shouldn't have been there either. I ( and some others in my group) changed to the Valentin board. Again, we all did the SAME thing but I was the only one who could get a green light. Not even sure how that happened. I was excited about getting the light to go green but felt bad for my partners in crime. One got a red light and the other got a blinking orange light.

My Steps:

  1. I started by using the Modela to create the Andy board. I had to start in Ubuntu (another new thing for me!). I had to program the Modela to select the image png starting with the traces. I began with the tool that was 1/64 size. Once the traces are done I changed the tool to the 1/32 size in order to cut the board out.
  2. I learned that it is important to tape the copper down so that there is no slippage. It is important to keep the work area clean so that everything sits evenly on the machine. Here is a picture of Dan cleaning up after milling his board.

  3. Once we milled the boards, it was on to soldering. Scott arranged for someone to teach us how to solder. I had never soldered anything before. We went down to the soldering lab and Chris was kind and patient. He taught us to do surface mount soldering. I really enjoyed that! Here is a picture of me soldering!

  4. Once we populated the boards, we went back to the Fab Lab to see if they worked. We were all so bummed out to find that they didn't work. Did we all make the same mistakes? That didn't seem likely. We think that the Modela tool wasn't small enough to complete some of the passes correctly. Still not sure aboutthat. Back to the drawing board!
  5. I repeated the process using the Valentin board.

  6. Back to the soldering lab with my diagram!

  7. Using the diagram and having soldered before, this went more quickly this time. I do like the soldering and am actually considering taking a class on soldering. Seems like a good skill to have.

    8. Well, here's to the close of another challenging week at Fab Academy! I hope that we are able to program these boards successfully in the upcoming weeks!

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