6. Electronics Design
The assignment this week is to, as a group, use the test equipment in our lab to observe the operation of a microcontroller and circuit board. For the individual assignment we had to design a development board to interact and communicate with an embedded microcontroller.
3D Printed Object
For this week I wanted to just make a basic but very functional circuit board, having all the normal pin connections but also one pin for each of the two power outputs and three connections to ground. I also added an LED that will show that the board is on and another LED connected to a button. I started by downloading the circuit design software, KiCad, the download decumantation of which I have linked bellow.
Then I opened the skematic design menu and started sketching out how I wanted the board to be shaped.
![](../Week6Imgs/MeDuino_1.jpg)
Next, I uploaded the skematic to the PCB, it worked very well but I learned theough the "suggestion lines", light blue lines that show which components are connected, that my original skematic was not set up correctly. This lead to a long and intricate process of trial and error until I finalized my skematic.
![](../Week6Imgs/MeDuino_2.jpg)
After the skematic was finished and all the "suggestion lines" pointed to the right commponents I started connecting the components. As you can see I used the space under the ESP microcontroller and a few "bridges", 0-Ohm resistors, to make paths that would otherwise conflict with eachother.
![](../Week6Imgs/UploadSchematic2PCB.jpg)
![](../Week6Imgs/MeDuino_3.jpg)
I then exported my PCB blueprint into Adobe Illistrate to create the outer milling cut to create the overall shape and cut it from the board when we mill.
![](../Week6Imgs/ExportMeDuino.jpg)
Personal Logo
This week I also designed a personal logo I will be putting on all of my projects moving forward. The thought process behind the design is that I have an interest in transportation tecnology. Whether it be on land, in the air, in and on water, or in space, it just facinates me. So I though of symbols or designs that represent travel or transportation, finally resting on a Compass Rose. For the color I just chose my favorate color, sky blue.
Group Page:
Useful links
None for this week.