I just finished streaming the next part of the FeatherWing saga.

You can watch it here:

During this stream, I finished placing all the components on the PCB (there might be some small changes before the final version, but nothing major.)

I also adjusted the screen and Feather as per the Twitter poll results, I have asked on Twitter if the screen should be centered absolutely on the PCB or aligned to the Active Area, the people have spoken and AA it is. As for the Feather, the location was also important and based on the feedback the feather is mounted near the top of the board with the USB connector pointing up.

The switch and the microsd connector are also pointing up, meaning all user-interactive elements are on the top of the board, should make designing cases easier.

After placing everything, I started routing components; I'm planning to keep this a two-layer board, even though it might be tricky at some points.

I also connected the rows and cols for the keyboard to the SAMD21 MCU. Previously I had them not connected because I had some flexibility there and wanted to choose pins that will allow for easiest routing. Next step is connected the 4 buttons and the 5-way button.

Otherwise, we had some nice conversations with the chat during the stream, some talk about how to learn KiCad and how to chose components for your designs.

The next stream should be the one where we finish all the routing, add some silkscreen and will be ready for production!