Learning outcomes:

Describe the process of milling, stuffing, de-bugging and programming.

Demonstrate correct workflows and identify areas for improvement if required.

Holaaa everyone!

So, first impressions during class: Neil’s excited about electronics – it’s my first time ever and honestly, I was a bit freaked out. In particular, the jargon and the names used for stuff. I was sitting there, feeling like everyone else knew what he was talking about and that I was the only one who didn’t.

That changed the next day when we started to make our boards. Professor Wendy explained our overall plan for how we’d achieve this week’s project. We would all learn the skills we needed and would also teach each other as we went along. I also discovered that at least one of these processes (or more) was new to everyone. What a relief!

Now I’ve made my very own FabISP, I’ve programmed it, and it was my first one as well. I’ve milled a few blanks, I’ve done a lot of soldering practice and I’ve troubleshooted a few error messages. I got help from everyone and was able to help others.

- Cutting, Assembling and Soldering -

1. We used the Roland SRM-20 for milling our first boards.

And yes do not forget to zero the setup of the mill bit before you give the green light to cut or print your board.

***How do you zero the X, Y and Z axes of the SRM-20?

We move the arrows of x and y in from the VPanel for SRM-20 Software and by also observing the movement of the mill bit and bed in the machine itself. So if we locate the place for the pcb so we go to select the X/Y from the SRP Player. and same thing to select the Z axis, by moving the mill bit up and down to zero the Z. and again in the SRP player/ in set origion Point/ select the Z.

screen shot needed

2. Download the Circuit Board -hello.isp.44.traces- from file. with using the fab modules and a 1/64" bit.

Click here to download

3. Download the Board Outline -hello.isp.44.interior- from file with using Mill using the fab modules and a 1/32" bit.

Click here to download

The board from the traces and board outline png images to the milled pcb. The options selected from fabmodules, what output format..

Here I choose 1/64 for cutting the traces

This is the gcode for the traces after we do calculate and then save .

And here I choose 1/32 for cutting the boarder

This is the gcode for the cuting after we do calculate and then save .

Changing the mill bit 1/64

Changing the mill bit 1/32

So to control the SRM-20 directly using SRP-Player by moving the arrows for X,Y and Z and I need to mention this as well that the mill bit for the traces is 1/64 and for cutting the boarder is 1/32

make sure you clean the board with soft material like tissue or brush if available.

Wash the board for cleaning the small pieces before soldering to not interfere any connection.

I did couple of tries for soldering on extra board just to control my hands on working better when I do the main board to not make increase the quality of the board. As for beginners like me I prefer to practice as many times as you can of soldering and controlling the hands on your board especially there are too tiny and small components.

Here I used 2 faces tape to stick the board in one place while I’m soldering.

4. Download the Stuff Board so that you can see what components you need to and where to place them on the board. Solder the components to the board using a soldering iron and solder (or solder paste and then baking.)

Click here to download

We followed the way of Wendy's in listing the Components like the image given by sticking all components on the side of the page by 2faces tab. "these lil elements are easy to be lost". So, I followed same way of our instructor Wendy but unfortunately didn’t take a photo of my list thus, this image is taken by her -just for copy rights- :)

And these are the -hello.isp.44.components- of Neal's board which Im going to use

This is how my board looks like after the assembling

- Programing the board-

I faced a challenge of in programming the board:

- All soldering process went good also with the connections except one part which was the board scratch and without noticing this very tiny gap in the board line there the board lost the connection line there!!!

- This is interesting to know that even the board lines should be straight connected and without any gap in between -Thanks Carl- for mentioning this point to me!!

Well, I did solder the line again to connect it because I have no issue with soldering the pins. Finished re-checking my board, components and soldering and all works well -happy me!!

- You can see in the following image how tiny the line is!

We downloaded the softwares from the links provided in here to build the FabTinyISP

So, the software we needed in programming are:

1. Install AVR Toolchain AVR Toolchain AVR 8-bit 3.5.4 for Windows

2. Gnu Make

3. avrdude

make sure you folowe the steps of instulation for putting them in the right path. and These commands tells that the software are successfully installed.

Thanks for Professor Wendy for explainging

Thanks for Professor Wendy for helping me in this step and explaining me the process of programming the board.

From Fab Academy/ tutorials/ week4/ electronic production. and then to Fab ISP_ english, Dowenload from there the FabISP Firmware file and channge the only the (#) by removing it from line number 15 to add in line number 16 .. you can look at the above. and thats because we need to build the usbtiny not avrisp2 so that adding the hashtag change it only to a comment.

Now for building the hex, fuse and programme

1. open git bash in firmware folder.

2. Type the following commands:

- cd Desktop/fabISP_mac.0.8.2_firmware

- make clean

- make hex

- make fuse

- make program