first i made a design, i had paper with squares, 26 horizontal and 37 vertical, so that would be the maximum size of the board. i did many revisions of the design, just to make sure i had accounted for everything...
i would place components on the vero board to check there was enough space between components and so that if i needed to drill a hole to separate the track, i would be able to. i found from previous experiments that i needed 1 "hole" as a gap between components that needed the track drilled.
i soldered the socket for the chip, the switch and the crystal in place. the chip socket's first pin is soldered to pin 12x,13y. the swich is soldered onto pin 1. the crystal is soldered between pin 9&10.
here you can see my soldering and drilling... its not that good... (gets worse!)
then its c1, c2, c3, c8, L1... c1 is soldered on 22x in line with pin 10, c2 on 21x in line with pin 9 , with with one hole between their legs, drilled. c3 between 7 & 8, L1 on 19x with a drilled hold between its legs. same with c8.
my solder work for these components. knowtice how shocking c1 and c2 are joined... i think this may cause me some serious problems. the soldering iron was too hot... i have a magnum 2002 soldering station, with very little experience. if anyone is reading this and can tell me what the right temperature to solder is... then that would be great and much appreciated!
in the top left corner, is a 5 pin header, in place of the serial DB9 sub connector... looking back i should have just soldered the serial connector on, breaking off the 4 unused pins... however, my top line of my board is the ground (bottom is +5V) so i know in my mind that pin 5 of the serial port is connected to the ground. this saves me some space in case i need the pin holes. so my serial connector goes like this from top to bottom, {5,1,2,3,4}port c is from pin 23 to 28, nothing special there... the pin 1 is connected to the ICSP pin 5... & yes, my ICSP ordering is different as well...
c6 and c2 are joined by a wire bridge.
c1/2 is connected to pin 6 of my ICSP via a wire bridge...
ok so i lost connection with my camera... my parents wanted to borrow it, so i went ahead and did the rest of the board with out taking photos. :( i will try redo the design as i have the board here, labling everything, giving step by step instruction, at work tomorrow, then make another post for that... im really not even sure the board will actually work... take a look below!
i soldered c5 and c8's negative to positive over the voltage regulator, when i connected it to the power source (without the ATmege8) the power LED light up for a while... the c8 blew up, scaring the cr@p out of me...! you can see the insides of c8 all over my pcb! lovely!
so this is what not to do! the shield part of the cap shot up like a bullet! i replaced c8 the right way this time... and...
we see the power LED light up. i left it like this for 5 minutes, just to be sure that nothing else would blow up... i really hope i have built everything properly...now i need to get a boot loader onto the ATmega8!
17 comments:
Ouch!! That is not good with that C8. I've done the same thing but I used a resonator instead of a crystal.
You might want to try putting the wires around the chip rather than over it as it makes taking the chip in and out a lot harder. Just in case you need to replace it.
Could you post a link to a picture of your arduino on veroboard?
Did yours work? where you able to load the boot loader?
100mil perforation and a few wires only == use AWG18, that's visually consistent and remarkably sturdier. Seriously, I'd happily do that if I had more of this wire handy (read: more ATX PSUs thrown out locally :) )
Now, larger projects with hundreds of wires call for AWG26 etc, just of sheer space requirements. I did a couple of projects, not even on a stripeboard, but on a dot-board (so no cutting required); boy, what a pain in the a$$ it was. Especially when the wires started to break off after a few weeks.
By the way, it looks nicer if tracks are cut with an x-acto knife or similar tool. Two parallel cuts, and the middle can just be peeled off.
It would be great if you could leave a link with photos of your projects?
Here's a generic Arduino prototype board: protoduino
VERY NICE!
for someone who is anonymous, you rule ;)
i have already ordered a premade arduino because I'm getting sick of getting it wrong & wasting money. all i have to do is wait for it to arrive from the states.
" Shipping for 5 items or less is $3 First Class or $6 Priority Mail. Sold in the US only for now, sorry"
so it looks like it would be impossible to have this in South Africa... :(
Not sure if you are using flux, but that makes soldering 100X easier. Awesome project : )
I made an Arduino-like board using Veroboard and an ATmega8 chip. Some photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anachrocomputer/sets/72157594387195783/
Very nice. If you find out the right temperature to solder these components please let me know.
Hi Dimitri
Possible LochMaster from ABACOM could help you design your boards.
http://www.abacom-online.de/uk/
I use this program by myself.
It saves time and is usefull to avoid faults.
greetings 0815achim
debreuil: I'm not using flux, i think my solder already has flux in it. I'm not sure if thats the same thing?
John Honniball, that's very impressive! was that AVR chip preprogrammed with the arduino software or are you writing to it using avrdude or something else? your stripper/vero board is a lot nicer than mine, ill try find some of that. i really like your use of 32 pin DIN41612 connectors for the ports, i take it the two rows are separated?
defer, John have given me new motivation to get it working! ill give it another bash!
Thanks Anonymous, i was looking for something like that. i was using eagle before, the a pen & paper... 39,90 € works out to 500 ZAR.
To help prevent exploding caps and glowing tracks, try using a current limited power supply.
This way, if anything gos wrong, you limit the amount of energy available for mishaps. If you don't have a current limited supply, use a cheep wall wart type as they can only deliver about 500mA. Or put a 10 Ohm 5 Watt Series Resistor in place, or even a 12V 500mA globe. I usually limit the current to about 4 times the expected maximum current needed.
One thing to remember though, If you don't have a storage cap across the power lines on the PCB (which you should have) put a cap across the the power lines after the resistor so that any momentary power requirements does not dip your supply voltage.
To help prevent exploding caps and glowing tracks, try using a current limited power supply.
This way, if anything gos wrong, you limit the amount of energy available for mishaps. If you don't have a current limited supply, use a cheep wall wart type as they can only deliver about 500mA. Or put a 10 Ohm 5 Watt Series Resistor in place, or even a 12V 500mA globe. I usually limit the current to about 4 times the expected maximum current needed.
One thing to remember though, If you don't have a storage cap across the power lines on the PCB (which you should have) put a cap across the the power lines after the resistor so that any momentary power requirements does not dip your supply voltage.
P.S. The soldering temperature you're looking for is 350 degrees Celsius
thanks Murray, ill take all of that into account!
I'm probably doing something dangerous, using a PC power supply for my projects...
For local pc boards try www.cboards.co.za
Also I can recommend mantech.co.za for component supply, the catalogue is not categorised but they are a friendly bunch and best prices I could find thus far ..
Good Luck
PS: Come say hi on the arduino.cc forums?
Thanks JacksSA.
I have been using mantech as a supplier & I full agree. They are a friendly bunch!
thanks for pointing me here: http://www.cboards.co.za I have mastered single side PCB etching with an acid like ferric chloride (yuck) & as soon as I have my McWire RepStrap machine working I will mill/engrave my own PCB's just as they do it at cboards.
What would now be useful is a *super* cheap single & double sided supplier for the blank copper clad. eg a 3 meter X 300mm piece of copper clad...
as for the arduino forums, I made an appearance, here is the post:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1229603909
I have etched the arduino serial & STILL have the problem of not being able to get the boot loader onto the chip :(
getting very close thou :)
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