The process
My experince in this area is very limited and the mincourse on electronics presented by Monther from Vuja De helped me in organizing my thought and how to strart
Group assignment
Musaed AlKout is the one who had the full process documneted in details, I will cover some highlights in my page.
01: Useing test equipment
01 | Regulated power supply
02| Multimeter
03| Oscilloscope
03| Logic analyzer
- Feedback:
- Challenge:
Individual assignment:
01: Simulate a circuit (Wokwi)
00 | I strated this task by asking Google AI Gemini to provide me with steps to use Wokwie to design and simulate a simple curcit
01 | I selected to work with ESP32-C3, then I added new parts for the list
02 | I selected a red LED, a button, and a 10K resistance for the button
03 | I connected the parts createing as shown in the drawing. LED Anode connected to the resistance then Ground on the microcontroller, Then the LED Cathos to pin 10 on the microcontroller. I also connected one leg of the buttin to the Ground of the microcontroller, and the other leg to pin 9
04 | I copied the code from Gemini AI, that will first define each pin to the variable name, then set the if condition function the define the behaviour of the curcit
05 | Deleted the defult code in the simulation, and run the simulation, but it did not work.
06 | I followed the documnetion by Musaed AlKout chnaged my circut to connect the LED to the button instead of the Ground
07 | After running the circut, the LED did not turned on. then I changed the code. and run the simulation.
08 | There was error in the sintaxe, I fixed the code
09 | When running the new code, the button was working as the sentence "LED OFF/ LED ON" was printed in the simulation but the LED was not on yet
10 | I checked the connection, and after searching I found that I missunderstood the look of LED legs. Short legs (Cathod) is straight and the long (Anode) is curved even though it looked shorter. I switched the connections
11 | I ran the simulation and it worked.. startment LED ON printen when the button is pressed and the LED turnned red.
12 | Then I checked the first code generated by AI Genimi and the it worked
13 | Then I tried the connection as I made it the first time; disconnecting the LED from the Button and connecting it directly to the ESP32, ran the simlulation and it worked.
- Feedback: Understanding the graphics is very important as well as making sure thath the code. sentax is correctly written or pasted
- Challenge: Debuging is not easy in building curcits. Including the print command for the button componenet was very useful
02: EDA tool to design PCB (KiCAD)
01 | I am using the EPS32 C3 supper mini for my project so I had to get the footprint from Snapeda
02 | I imported the files to the library of KiCAD
02 | I imported the files to the library of KiCAD
03 | Selecteing the file be imported
04 | I add the microprocessor, a LED light, a resestor and a button from the library
05 | I alligned them and connected them to create my PCB board
06 | After running the Electrical Rules Checker to find the errors
07 | Then I strated to fix the errors, by firt closing the pins which are not connected to anythihng
08 | Then I added power flag net to the Ground connecting and all the errors were fixed
09 | Then I assigned the footprints to each part from the list
10 | After completed the foot prints and now ready to switch to PCB Editor
11 | This is how it looks, and I found that I selected the wrong LED and resestor part. So I had to switch to the Schematics editos and repeat steps from 4 to 10
12 | So I had to switch to the Schematics editos and repeat steps from 4 to 10
13 | This is how it looks in the PPCB Editor with all routes connected
14 | a also draw the shape of the board and changed the properties to Edge Cuts
14 | and this is how it looks in the 3D Viewer
- Feedback:KiCad is an interested EDA, it took me time to lean the basics and fixing the errors took hours spend on tutorials. Anyhow, it worth the efforts.
- Challenge: Knowing the exact name of the parts in the library and making sure it have a footprint to be linked to. Many of the library parts miss the footprint
04: Design a case in FreeCAD
00 | I followed this youtube tutorial
01 | I exported my KiCAD file as STEP file, Imported it to the FreeCAD and started creating the case
02 | I followed the steps in the video to create a case
03 | I was not able to complete slicing the top cover of the case and I ran out of time to complete this task
- Feedback: I learned alot and I appreciate the parametric designs for the case as it was very easy and time saving compared to the previous way I used to manually try to fit things in
- Challenge: time time time .. I need more time to watch tutorials and try more. sometimes I feel I didnt try enough to even ask for assesstant