6. Electronics design
For this week, I used KiCad to design a custom PCB for my 3-DOF Robotic Arm Lamp. The goal was to integrate motion control, lighting, and distance-based interaction into one compact board.
Robotic arm system overview
The electronic system for the robotic arm lamp includes the following main components:
- Three servo motors (3 Degrees of Freedom) to control the arm’s movement
- A Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 microcontroller as the main controller
- A NeoPixel LED ring for dynamic lighting effects
- An I²C distance sensor for interactive control based on proximity detection
KiCad schematic and PCB design
In KiCad I completed the schematic design, component placement, power routing (5 V servo traces), signal connections, and PCB layout optimization. The final board layout is optimized to fit inside the robotic arm lamp base while keeping the high-current servo traces short and the signal lines clean.
Useful links
Code Example
// 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
}
Gallery
