8 - Electronics production¶
Assignments¶
Group assignment:¶
- Characterize the design rules for your in-house PCB production process: document feeds, speeds, plunge rate, depth of cut (traces and outline) and tooling.
- Document the workflow for sending a PCB to a boardhouse
- Document your work to the group work page and reflect on your individual page what you learned
Individual assignment:¶
- Make and test a microcontroller development board that you designed
Learning outcomes¶
- Described the process of tool-path generation, milling, stuffing, de-bugging and programming
- Demonstrate correct workflows and identify areas for improvement if required
The road map i made for this week can be accesed here
Group Assignment¶
You can find our group assignment here
Pcb stands for Printed Circuit Board The Monofab SRM-20 is designed for creating precise, small-scale prototypes, including PCBs. It has a high-precision spindle which is capable of milling various materials like copper-clad boards (for PCBs), plastics, and soft metals as well.
Common uses include PCB are usually engraving, and creating mechanical parts.
The above image was from the past fab academy students work. You can find it here
Cuttable Material: Modelling Wax, Chemical Wood, Foam, Acrylic, Poly acetate, ABS, PC board
X, Y, and Z Operation Strokes: 203.2 (X) x 152.4 (Y) x 60.5 (Z) mm
Distance From Collet Tip to Table : Max, 130.75mm (5.15 in)
Loadable Workpiece Weight : 2 kg (4.4 lb)
X-, Y-, and Z-Axis Drive System : Stepping motor
Operating Speed : 6 - 1800mm/min 0., - 70.87inch/min
Software Resolution : 0.01 mm/step (RML-1), 0.001mm/step (NC code), 0.000039 inches/step (RML-1), 0.000039 inches/step (NC code)
Mechanical Resolution : 0.000998594 mm/step, 0.0000393 inches/step
Spindle Motor : DC motor Type 380
Cutting Tool Chuck : Collet method
Included Items : USB cable, AC adapter, Power cable, Cutting tool, Collet, Set screw, Spanners (7,10mm), Hexagonal wrench (size 2,3 mm), Positioning pins, Double-sided tape, Start-up page guidance card
Safety Measurements¶
1- Machine Operation:
Read the Manual - Know the rules and instructions for the pcb machine before statrting to blindly exlore. Make sure you know and follow the rules int he manulal - Follow Manufacturer Instructions in the manual as well Emergency Stop - Know when it is needed to stop the printing process like when it looks like the wrong design is printing, or it looks like it will burn.
2- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE):
- Wear Safety equipments like safey Glasses,Gloves,Lab Coat/Protective Clothing,and Respiratory Protection
3- Chemical Handling:
- Proper Ventilation,Store Chemicals Safely and Use Appropriate Containers whi.le printing the design or soldering, as it can effect your health
How to use the pcb machine¶
Before anything, it’s important to make sure have your circuits design form mods downloaded. For me, since I used a different laptop to make my kicad design(for the pcb) I dwnloaded my file from the laptop i’m using and send it to my email, so the steps start from there
For a basic summary of the steps to getting the mod svg file, it starts Wwhen making the KiCad Schematic Layout amd the pcb design the exporting it.Then we take the exported file to inkscape, than calculate the vector cut in mods.
For more details, visit my week 6 Electronics Production documentation here
Step-1 - I accesed my email and downloaded the svg file for the printing process
Step-2 - The app we will be using to cut our design is called VPanel
-
First of all, we need to change the placement of our surface with the settings of the app. Then we have to change the yand x axis to 0 from the settings.
-
While doing this with the z axis, we have to change the settings than adjust the mill with the screw, and then we can move on to the next step
Step-3 - To transfer the rml file of your design, firstly we have to click on the cut icon
- Then these settings will appear. When they do, click on delate all to delate the old design file
- Afterwards, click on the add icon to add the new design you want to print
- Click on the output icon to start the printing
- After the printings done, remember to vaccum it!
And thats pretty much how you use the pcb machine.
Individual Assignement¶
Quentorres¶
ModsCE¶
(This was documented in my electronics design week as well, so as a recap, I’ll added the same documentation here)
Now that we’re done with the inkscape design, now we can work on mods to get the cutting boarder line!
You can access mods here
Step-1 - Open mods and than right click. Select Programs-Open Program-Roland-mill 2D Pcb
Step-2 - This should have appered after the previous steps. Import the schematic layout you made from inkscape.
Step-3 - Invert the design you imported
Step-4 - Change the orgins to 0.
Step-5 - Delate a few unecessary mods
Step-6 - Right click again. Select Modules-Add modules-File-Save - Connect the new mod with the old one, and lastly click on calulate to get your circuit cutout.
Here is the finished product!
Thank you!
This is my microcontroller which I will be using for this circuit
Milling¶
Now, with all the design files ready and after learning how to use the pcb machine, I moved on to actually printing!
When printing the insides, use the 1/64 mill When printing the edge, use the 1/32 mill
And these are all the boards that I have made!(I made a lot of mistakes, but I think I can now confidentally use the pcb machine!)
As for the soldering process of the circuit now, due to this being the first time I’m using and trying soldering, my local instructor helped me with soldering the micricontroller(esp32 wroom 32) due to it being harder to solder for beginners.
Due to this, I decided to work on xaio for the first project i’m making
This was the wor plan I made with my local instructor on the basic connections I need to make for this weeks board
This was when I remade my board…
Now for the soldering part,these were the materials I used
And, finally this is my finished product!
My local instructor helped me with the programing bit of the assignment, as I was running out of time. For this, I just tryed it out with a led and blink code
Programming and Debugging¶
For this process, I will be using arduino uno for uploading my code onto my circuit
I wanted to try using an exaple code for this, so I believe I will try the blink code
/*
Blink
Turns an LED on for one second, then off for one second, repeatedly.
Most Arduinos have an on-board LED you can control. On the UNO, MEGA and ZERO
it is attached to digital pin 13, on MKR1000 on pin 6. LED_BUILTIN is set to
the correct LED pin independent of which board is used.
If you want to know what pin the on-board LED is connected to on your Arduino
model, check the Technical Specs of your board at:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Products
modified 8 May 2014
by Scott Fitzgerald
modified 2 Sep 2016
by Arturo Guadalupi
modified 8 Sep 2016
by Colby Newman
This example code is in the public domain.
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BuiltInExamples/Blink
*/
// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
}
// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
delay(1000); // wait for a second
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
delay(1000); // wait for a second
}
I changed the pin to d4 for uploading the blink code
Errors¶
1 - Most of the issues I had involved having to transfer the design file to print. I printed the wrong design more than once, so I eveuntally got help from a senior.
It turned out I printed the edge file with the 1/64 mill, and the circuit vector file with the 1/32 mill, so i made sure to name the files to not get confused(seniors recomendation)
(I had to reset the copper plate a lot as well, which took a lot of time from me)
2- Another issue I had was with the soldering process.I struggled with soldering the small componemts, and also burned a slide switch.
3- I also had issues with what file format i printed in, because its supposed to be in rml, but a few of my designs ended up being printed in svg.(another reason it did’t work) I found this out latter onwards thugh, so I fixed it
4- Lastly, not exactly an error, but in the end, I redid my circuit and made one with xaio, so yea. Most of the work I did this week was somewhat for nothing(I’m happy I got to finish my assignment and learn from my mistakes!)
Original Design Files¶
Thank you!