Schematic design with KiCad

I haven't properly tried to use KiCad before. I'm mainly used to using Eagle, but it seems like knowing KiCad would be a very useful skill to have, especially as it's Open Source.

The schematic is currently in very early stages, I've added the main components though I believe.

A number of these I had to design myself. I found quite a useful webpage though, which makes designing the part a lot quicker: kicad quicklib

I will also work on adding these files to my Github repository.

I'm currently also looking more into how to use the ultrasound transducer to both emit and receive pulses. I'm not sure how the voltage levels of the pulses emitted compare to those recieved, at the moment - if anyone has got any info on this or rough figures, I would be very interested to know!

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anfractuosity wrote 08/16/2014 at 17:06

Yeah unfortunately the manufacturer hasn't given me specific activation voltages for the transducer only some rough ranges, so I'll start low and work my way up if necessary.

Cheers, I'll make sure to check out those videos!

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zakqwy wrote 08/16/2014 at 14:35

I know the commercial ultrasonic level systems I've used send pulses to transducers in the high tens or low hundreds of volts; not sure about the return signal. They use 2 conductor shielded cable and are temperature compensated for improved accuracy.

Good work with Kicad. I dove in to the program earlier this year and figured out that learning the keyboard shortcuts makes life significantly easier. Chris Gammell has done a number of extremely helpful Youtube videos on the subject that are worth checking out.

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Chamber

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