8. Electronics Design - working¶
This week’s individual assignment was to design our own evaluation board around a microcontroller using EDA software. Our group assignment was to observe the operation of a microcontroller circuit board.
Group Work¶
Our group assignment was to use our lab’s various electronic test equipment to observe the operation of a microcontroller board.
We documented our work here” Electronics design group assignment
Individual assignment¶
The individual assignment this week was to design my own evaluation baord around a microcontroller.
Software¶
I decided to use KiCad as my EDA software suit. In our lab group we had students using different EDA software: - Autodesk Fusion EDA - EasyEDA - KiCad
My choice came down to a couple of factors:
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Fusion 360’s accessibility. Fusion 360 is a very powerful software suite. That power also comes with heavier computer requirements. I have found that my computer in the lab often runs a little slugish when using Fusion 360; This is either due to slower internet, older computer hardware, or a combination of both.
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Difficult to run classes for Fusion 360. As I said before, me and my coworkers run our Fablab in Trinidad. We run workshops for a few of the labs equipment, and our intention is to greatly expand these offerings. Right now Fusion 360 has a free personal/hubbyist license, and we are able to get student accounts through fab academy. However, there’s no guarantee that personal/hobbyist accounts will be available in the future, or they may remove the circuit design feature from the free accounts. Because of this, Fusion 360 is not a great choice for us to relly on for our workshops in the future. Therefore, I would rather familiarize myself with a solution that we are likely to use for our internal programs.
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KiCAD’s documentation within FAB Academy. The very first EDA project I looked at in fab academy was Quentores baord we made for the electronic production assignment. I think I understood everything that was shown in the schematics so , and since it’s a free program it would work well for our internal
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EasyEDA regrets. The one student in our group who used EasyEDA said it worked well for his initial smaller baord, but he eventually abandoned it in favour of Fusion 360 later on. I didn’t go into detail on why exactly, but I used that as a signal that better choices were available.
sub categories....¶
Lessons learned¶
- I assumed trace routing was automatic.
- I forgot about the encasing of my final board. breakout board for buttons and LEDs. will still use vertical pins on side