SILSpark

Description

This board is was inspired on a Hackaday post about an Arduino board with SIL connector for easier protoboard using. Used a couple of spare hours to manually route a singled sided board using only PTH components. Also added a Barrel connector as well as Pads for either 5V or another external supply connection.

Details

The SILSpark is basically a Digispark Clone designed for DIYers as it features:

Single Sided design, making it easy to reproduce at home using tone transfer or another method.
Through Hole components, making it easy to assemble and to get components
Socket mounted DIL8 Attiny85 for easy replacement or reprogramming the bootloader specially when Reset PIN is used as IO.
Several powering options:
- Barrel DC connector
- Pads for external battery
- USB connector
- Pads for +5V
- I/O connector
SIL connector with all I/O pins as well as the power pins, making it easy to be mounted on a proto-board as well as making easy to attach 'shield' boards.

Components

1 × Attiny85 Microprocessors, Microcontrollers, DSPs / ARM, RISC-Based Microcontrollers

1 × 78L05 Power Management ICs / Linear Voltage Regulators and LDOs

1 × 1N4148 Discrete Semiconductors / Diodes and Rectifiers

2 × BZX79C3V3 Discrete Semiconductors / Diodes and Rectifiers

1 × 2K2 Resistor, 1/4 Watt

Project Logs

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Assembling the PCB
danjovic • 03/15/2016 at 03:17 • 0 comments

The board as assembled quickly as it doesn't have much components. I started with the resistors and zeners, then placed and soldered everything else.
The last part of the assembly was to insert the ATTiny85 in the socket. It was already programmed from a former project ( #Oh Cheat! ). I'll cover the programming in the instructions.
The board was ready to be tested:
It fits well in the protoboard, but the capacitor is taking too much room. Maybe it's better to use the board from the backside or assemble the circuit in the protoboard first then insert the Silspark at the end.
The first test, of course was to blink an LED. Here it is!
Making the PCB
danjovic • 03/15/2016 at 02:53 • 0 comments

The PCB was etched using tone transfer method. The board layout was printed on a couche paper sheet from a magazine.
The board was then etched, drilled and trimmed.
A final touch was adding a silver cover over the copper using TP056E. This stuff really works. I have boards without apparent oxidation that were protected in 2008 when I bought this stuff that now has expired for over 6 years and still work, not quite as good than before it expired though.