4. Embedded Programming¶
Task : Embedded Programming¶
For this week assigmnement we had to :
- My group assignment was to characterize the design rules for your in-house PCB production process and to send a PCB out to a board house.
- make and test a microcontroller development board.
XIAO BOARDS¶
The XIAO (name of the size of the board) by SeedStudio was something i heard for the 1st time in Neal’s Class.I was only aware of Grove series. Xiao means tiny but powerful. These boards esp RP2040 was recommended by Fabacademy to build the Quentorres.
A Microcontroller is a microprocessor with added stuff (peripherals; for example ESP32 has WiFi). During this week i experimented with other ESP32 boards from M5Stack and it’s interface.
Setting up the Arduino IDE¶
The documentation for the XIAO ESP32 & RP2040 is here.
On a Macbook Air with M1 chip Ardiuno installtion steps are :
Group Assignemnt¶
COMPARING ARCHITECTURES¶
For the group assignment this week, we have to compare the performance and development workflow for different architectures.
Componenents Required¶
- SEEED STUDIO XIAO RP2040 - 1
- CONN HEADER SMD 10POS 1.27MM - 1
- CONN HEADER SMD R/A 6POS 2.54MM - 1
- Tactile Switch SPST-NO Top Actuated Surface Mount - 1
- LED BLUE CLEAR 1206 SMD - 3
- RES 1K OHM 1% ¼W 1206 - 4
- RES 499 OHM 1% ¼W 1206 - 1
- CONN HDR 7POS 0.1 TIN SMD* - 2
Process for Manufacturing
¶
To manufacutre the PCB with the Milling machine we used the MODproject
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Step 4:
For the traces we used the Quentorres board as recommended :
Complete traces :
We need two files, one for the traces and one for the cutting.
First, you need to upload a SVG or a PNG of your circuit.
After uploading the picture to mods we downloading the G code to the milling machine.
Rml file from the modsproject are :
While testing the z-0 we accidently broke the milling tips¶
This is the SRM-20 Machine Vpanel Monofab_drill bit
This is the final milling before the bit broke.
Update March
Group Assignment :
¶
Sending to PCB house as a Group Assignment