THE FUN OF AUTO-ROUTING
I am starting to appreciate the auto-routing features in the EaglePCB. It gets the job done and looking at the image below, saved me hundreds of hours. I am very thankful of that fact.
Auto-routing is so simple. I just prepare the PCB design, make sure my schematics are correct, and click START. After a few moments, it is done and I can choose the best itiration either by the percentage done or the number of vias. Usually, I would choose the one that looked nice (Ha ha).
In this case, with the image below, I would have to choose the one with the highest percentage of
But what is so good, or maybe ‘addictive’, is that this feature allows me to do revise my designs repeatedly. It lets me re-position the components in many ways for a much better design flow. And I can say the same for the Schematics too.
A NEW CONCEPT OR JUST PLAIN OVERCONFIDENCE?
Right now, I am thinking very hard about rushing to the next stage. I usually start a Project off with a brief sketch of a circuit diagram. Then I would work on it until it is ready to be on a prototyping board. I would then test and improve on the circuit before I move on to the PCB stage.
And so, what if, I did not test the circuit and moved on to the PCB part instead?
Scary, right? The design of this board is just based on the 555/4017 circuit but expanded to perform more tricks. But there are parts of the circuit which I have never tested before and so, this is that fear that the design might just fail. When I was working in a manufacturing environment, a single mistake if not rectified at an early stage, can be disastrous.
WHAT CAN GO WRONG?
The worst case scenario here is that it would get me 5 PCBs, lose some valuable components, all these for about USD7 to learn not to stray from my own Rules. AND I would still have to work on the design as punishment.
BITING THE BULLET
So, today is a Sunny Thursday, so, why the heck not? I just did some error checking on this board and corrected them. The roughly 2.5″ by 2″ (or 6.0cm by 3.0 cm) PCB is a very compact design. And I won’t know if JLCPCB checking approves it.
And this image is not definite because I re-did it again and again. Ha ha ha.
JLCPCB APPROVED
Minutes later, I am relieved that there was no issues from JLCPCB as the design was approved. I will only know if this idea was worth taking the risk when the board arrives in three weeks time.
Initially, the board is set to default green. You can see how complex the design is.
As the LEDs are ‘fixed’ in place, I had to work around them. This made re-wiring them very challenging and cause crazy revisions until everything looked right. But will it work right? If it does, I will be one step closer to my Dream since the 90’s.
This PCB is a little different because it has a LiPo charger module piggyback to it and will supply power to the other boards.
