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Boards (mostly) assembled!

A project log for SCPI-over-Ethernet Foot Controller

A microcontroller-based solution to foot-controlling test equipment.

john-wJohn W. 07/06/2016 at 23:180 Comments

Here they are! I still need to get my MAX232DRs and populate the indicator LED resistors and headers, but once I do so, they should be good to go. I also whipped up an RJ13->6 pin adapter for the ICD 3 so I could program (and debug, if necessary) the PICs. That part went off without a hitch. The PICs power up, they run the code, they program through the ICD3, it's all great.

I had to fix a bunch of layout oopsies, like not seeing grounds I had to connect, or a footprint error I made, or forgetting entirely to lay out one of the RMII signals. If I lay these out again at some point, I'm definitely going 4-layer next time. The routing pain-in-the-ass of dealing with only having 2 layers isn't really worth the cost reduction on such a small board. If I was just using the USB host or device and GPIO functionality on the chip, it might not have been so bad. RMII, however, is pretty spread out, with the signals on 3 sides of the IC. Bleh!

Oh well! Lessons learned, right?

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