6. Electronics Design¶
This week’s Assignments¶
Group assignment:¶
- Use the test equipment in your lab to observe the operation of a microcontroller circuit board (as a minimum, you should demonstrate the use of a multimeter and oscilloscope)
- Document your work on the group work page and reflect what you learned on your individual page
Individual assignment:¶
- Use an EDA tool to design a development board that uses parts from the inventory to interact and communicate with an embedded microcontroller
Learning outcomes¶
- Select and use software for circuit board design
- Demonstrate workflows used in circuit board design
Group assignment¶
This is a link of group assignment. Week 06 group assignment
Indivitual assignment¶
Get to Know the basic of electric¶
I read the text about the basic of electric at first, and got rough knowledge.
- Ohm’s law
V = IR
Voltage(V): Electrical pressure or force
Current(A): The quantity of electrons passing a given point.
Resistance(Ω):A measure of the opposition to the flow of current.
Install KiCad¶
I installed the KiCad from internet.
/www.kicad.org/download/.
As my computer is Mac, I chose mac version.
Then I chose “worldwide” version.
Then, downloaded and installed libraries.
After that, select “Preferences”→”Manage Symbol libraries” add the new-added one.
Also, same as add file at “Manage footprint” as well.
Then, downloaded and installed libraries.
Make circuit¶
Sketching the circuit by schematic¶
When KiCAD is started, this window comes out.
I made new project from the menu bar.
Then I put some items.
First select (1) or type “A” for select items from the list.
The item list comes out and choose the one you want. There are several items which Fablab supply for us, so I chose the items from “fab”.
I chose “Xiao esp32S3” and put on the sheet.
Same procedure for LED, resistor, and pin-headers.
For power symbol such as power, ground(GND), and GND flag, select (2) and list are came out.
When you push “esc” key, selection is cancelled and ↑ is selected.
Then I put the labels from D0 to D9. Select (3), and then new window came out and input the label’s name and connect with the pin.
When you want to rotate it’s position, click ‘r’, the item is rotated 90 degree.
I decided to put the labels as follows:
D0-D5: Put Pin header
D7: TX
D8: RX
D9: put Debug LED
After finish drawing, I had to check if all the lines are correct.
select (3), then check it.(5)
If it has some problem, the arrow and explanation tell how to solve them.
(4) is Assign footprint.
Until this sheet has been made…¶
First drawing I tried to put same items as Instructor did (I really didn’t know how it worked)
Then, instructors advised me to put the pin header for UART too. So, I put UART pin for D6 and D7.
When I finished drawing in schematic editing, it should be checked all line works properly in ERC(Electrical Rules Checker).
If there is no mistake, I can move to PCB editing.
PCB editing¶
When I finished schematic editing, I moved to PCB editing. When you push (5), new PCB edtitor window comes out.
Then pushed this button and “Update PCB” window is appeared.
Click the “Update PCB” button, then the sketch is appeared.
First, we need to set up the line cable.
It is decided in Kamakura as follows:
- line with power or GND is 1mm thickness
- line with other items such as pin header is 0.4mm thickness
Click board setting (2nd left at the top bar menu).
It is connected the line along to original blue line.
After finishing PCB board, Click “Edge Cuts” at right side menu
I made outline(circle) around the circuit.
I changed the schematic and reflected
At last, DRC(Design Rules Checker) should be done before next step
and should be no error in it.
Research¶
As I have no idea about electronic, instructors introduce the book called “Getting Started in Electronics”.
I read first 2 chapters and got really basic idea and basic words(because English and Japanese words are different).
What I’ve learned¶
I tried and checked several pages about electronic and electric work. I guess I could learn through making a electronic circuit. Though I still have a lot of things to learn, I could understand the electronic and micro controller little by little.