Difference between revisions of "How to Make Circuits in the Fab Lab"
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Revision as of 19:03, 14 January 2010
How To Make Circuits in the Fab Lab
Making a circuit requires several mini-projects:
Contents
Decide what function your circuit board should have
A good approach is to write down in words how the circuit board should work.
- download a cad file from the hello-world circuits section on the http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/fab/ or from hello world electronics
- Look for open hardware solutions on the internet.* Or design custom circuit
Create the schematic and board layout in a CAD program
Use e.g. Eagle or Cad.py, ,or Gimp (drawing tool), Inkscape or Open Office or draw it with black pen and scan and trace. The gap should be the right size and shape.
Fabricate the board
Physically milling or cutting out the board which connects components
- Making circuit boards on Modela
- Making circuit boards on Camm with e.g. copper foil.
- Making circuit boards on Epilog Laser
Solder the board
Solder the components to the board. If you want to where the components should be you could look at the file design, in .cad file or you can check out
Solder the board.
Make a programming cable
- Make a programming cable -> Pedro
Write the Program
Write the program (in e.g. assembler or C) , compile the program so that the microcontroller will understand it -> Jan
Programming the microcontroller
If you are using the Fab Labs, AVR microcontrollers
- Use ICP (In Circuit Programmer)
- AVRDUDE
-> Jan
Test the microcontroller
Plug the microcontroller in.
- Is the power on?
Troubleshooting
- Is the power on?
- Is the battery plugged in?
- Is the power going to the microcontroller?
- Use multimeter, to measure the power and it should be around 3,3 Volts to 5 Volts for the hello boards.
- Is the board soldered rightly?
-> Nuno
