• 3 boards up for adoption

    Charlie • 03/20/2016 at 00:21 • 2 comments

    Although I really love my little boards, I don't have use for all of them, so I am putting 2 v1.1 boards and 1 v1.0 board up for adoption in exchange of good care. Just reply to this log or MP me. Tell me if you prefer the bare PCB or populated.

  • v1.1 boards are here!

    Charlie • 03/09/2016 at 19:57 • 2 comments

    The boards finally arrived from the fab house! It's the same joy every time I open my mailbox to find the package Santa (OSHPark) sent me!

    Back to the boards. They measure 53x18mm, slightly less than the previous version. The components are the same as for the previous version. Here are some pictures of it. First, the bare PCB then with the components.

    Here are the two versions (so far?) of the board side by side. The second version (on the left) is powered directly from the power rails while the first version (on the right) needs two wires to get moving electrons coming in.

    Also you'll notice the slightly smaller footprint of the second version.

  • Version 1.1 sent to the fab

    Charlie • 02/26/2016 at 01:56 • 0 comments

    The version 1.1 has been sent to the fab today. The board is now 53x18 mm. The schematics doesn't change but the layout of the board does. The headers powering the board have been moved so that they plug directly in the power row of a breadboard. No need to wire those now! And they should provide better support to the board. We'll see when they come back from the fab. Until then, here is the board layout.

  • En route to version 2!

    Charlie • 02/25/2016 at 20:41 • 0 comments

    Actually this would be version 1.1 as there are no big improvement. After using it for a while I figured that I could have made it better.

    For instance, I have to use two wires to provide ground and vcc to the board. The whole point of this board is to ease the development of other boards by reducing the number of wires on the breadboard. So I guess I can loose those two wires and get power from the red and blue lines directly using headers.

    The second possible improvement is on the mechanical side. Those tiny smd buttons are great but tiny! And they require quite a bit of force to be pushed. With the version 1.0, the headers are in line with each other so when I press a button the board bends towards the breadboard. Not really a problem but it should be resolved by putting headers somewhere else on the board. And so will be the power header.

  • Added photo of ver. 1.0

    Charlie • 02/25/2016 at 20:20 • 0 comments

    I have just added pictures of the first version of my little breakout board. The bare PCB (from OSH park obviously), the assembled board and the board on a breadboard.