Week #3: Make-through

To produce a product or a prototype, I need to go from using a testing board to using a printed circuit board (PCB). Because the testing board occupies a lot of space and the components are not fixed in it.

that's

why this week is about PCB design and fabrication,

this week assignment is to :

Design, fabricate, and solder a general-purpose ATTiny44 Microcontroller board.

OBJECTIVE #1: Design the ATtiny PCB board

Trial #1 (successful):

Step 1:

setup eagle and install Sparkfun and fab libraries and activate it.

problem 1: At the beginning of my use of Eagle, I had a problem that the language of the interface of the program is mixed between Arabic and English.

solution: After a search, I found that I deleted the Arabic file from the program

Step 2:

Create and Connecting Components in Schematic View

problem 1: the library is not active

solution: I found that I changed the library distinction on my PC so I add the new destination again

problem 2: sometimes the library is not active while I'm searching for some component

solution: close the eagle and reopen it

the lest of the components

1. [ 1-ATtiny ] UC_ATTINY44-SSU (UC_ATTINY44) footprint SOIC14

THE CONTROLLER

1. [1- capacitor ]CAP_UNPOLARIZED footprint (C1206) DECUBLING CAPACITOR

1. [1- SPI ]AVR_SPI_PROG_3X2OFFSET_PADS (AVR_SPI_PROG_3X2) footprint (2X3_OFFSET)

TO UPLOAD THE CODE

1. [ 2- PIN HEADERS ] CONN_07LONGPADS (CONN_07) footprint 1X07_LONGPADS

AS A general-purpose I/O Through-hole Pin Headers connected to pins 0 to 14 and

1. [ 1-SWITCH ] MOMENTARY-SWITCH-SPST-SMD-5.2-REDUNDANT (MOMENTARY-SWITCH-SPST) footprint TACTILE_SWITCH_SMD_5.2MM

1. [ 1-LED ] LEDFAB1206 (LED) footprint LED1206FAB
2. [ I- PIN HEADER ] PINHD-1X2 (Version 4) footprint 1X02 (Version 1) AS through-hole Power Header (Vcc pin and GND Pin)

8- [ 4- RISTOR ] footprint R1206FAB

Step 3:Defining the Design rules and Routing Components in Board View

Design rules

We determine the design rules based on where we fabricate.

Here I fabricate in the Fablab Egypt, so I use its design rules which are :

minimum track width is 0.4 mm
minimum clearance between any wire bad, via is 0.4 mm
minimum drill is 0.6

Routing Components in Board View

I consumed too much time in the routing

and changing the position of the component and etc.

final board .brd

final schematic.sch

dimensions

Step 4:Exporting and preparing design files for PCB Milling

press CAM processor and generate the Gerber files

2.with GERBVIEW software make a pdf files one for the top and one for the drills to open them with GIMP software

top.pdf

drills.pdf

3. with GIMP software open the pdf files from the previous step and create the png file for the CNC milling machine as follow in the screenshots

profile.png

top.png

with GIMP deleted the previous mistake

top2.png

drills.png

OBJECTIVE #2: manufacturing

Trial #1 (unSuccessful): fabrication

went to the lap on 31/1/2021 to fabricate the PCB at my time slot, but I found my mates still using the machine so I waited until the end and at 6 PM the assistant told me there's no time for me to work today and to communicate with the instructor to arrange another time so I left

Trial #2 (unSuccessful): fabrication

Went to the lap on 2/2/2021 to fabricate the PCB at my time slot, but I arrived late. Arrived at 5:25 PM and my slot end at 6. The assistant told me they can't work after 6 PM

I asked I can work until 6 PM but she refused because she thinks this will waste the material

this is really sad after I waste around 8 hours in transportation I didn't get the job done and waiting for the next try