For my electronic production, what I did was take what I made during embedded programming week and improve it a little. I switched out the Arduino Uno R3 for a Seeed RP2350, and I also swapped the IRF520 for an actual motor driver chip that came in the kit. The coding stayed mostly the same, I just had to tweak it a bit to work with the RP2350. ChatGPT (aka "Sparks") helped me with a lot of the coding.
Before I go any further, I want to explain all my failures during this process. For these next few weeks, we were supposed to use the CNC to mill and drill boards, but I had a huge challenge just getting the machine to run. I downloaded all the software for the Makera Carvera desktop CNC, including both the CAM software and the controller. I could get the controller to open, but the CAM software would not open and kept giving me an error saying I had no internet connection.
Before figuring it out, I went through four different computers, wiped both of my laptops, and even used my fiancée’s brand new MacBook. I got it to work one time on her Mac, and that was it. I later realized that where I work (a middle school), they have a lot of restrictions on their Wi-Fi network. At home, the CAM software worked perfectly on every computer, but at school it would not connect and kept giving the same error.
After finally figuring it out, I asked for permission to take the CNC home so I could mill all the boards I had ready in KiCad. I got approval, and now the CNC is sitting on my kitchen counter... and I’m already getting yelled at for it. But in that short time, I was able to mill my first board for the RP2350, which you will see in the pictures below.
Once I started working in KiCad again, I ran into another issue. Since I wiped my computers, I forgot to reinstall the Fab Academy footprints. Because of that, I had trouble finding the RP2040/RP2350 and other components I needed. After some time, I got everything reinstalled and finally created my first PCB design.
After milling my first board, I realized the PCB was not laying flat on the machine bed. You can see in some of the corners where the bit didn’t fully cut, which caused poor traces. Some traces were not milled correctly or broke when I tested them with a multimeter.
here is another i was having problems with
this is another one i was trying to find the seeed
this is the footprints i was getting before the redownload