Remember the PCB design which I totally forgot and sent it off to JCLPCB? Well, it has arrived today and I was so happy. My hands were trembling again but I know it is not with happiness but with suspense. To be honest, that design is actually a ‘still in progress’ work and there are a lot more considerations that I have not taken into account.
THE HAPPINESS OF GLOOM
I steeled myself before opening the signature blue box from JLCPCB. When I held up the PCBs, immediately, I knew there was a problem. Maybe they knew about this and so, gave me a discount voucher for my next order (yay!).
Right off the bat, you can see the first problem which is the line of 24 holes meant for the 257 rectangular LEDs. They are actually too close together. Even when I bent the legs of the LEDs, they would be shorting each other.
The Component Side (top) and the Solder Side (bottom) of the board. Yea, it is so disappointing. It is really a Fail.
But let’s move on and learn from these stupid mistakes. As you can see, the vias are actually too big. when I compared mine with Arky’s design. So I will need to look up JLCPCB’s specs.
And this is one of the silly mistakes which I have forgotten to remove before uploading. I outlined the rectangular holes with a 20.Dimension layer to prevent the EaglePCB auto-router from entering. I should have either remove it after the process or, redo the circuit and leave it as a solder pad. So now, where I am supposed to solder a module in there, there is a pair of gaping holes. And then I looked at the module, it is an older version as well. I am amazed JLCPCB can do these holes but the corners are rounded, which means, coming board would be very interesting.
Here, JLCPCB says I should be having some problems with my next PCB although it has passed checking…. oh-oh
Going over to their Website (https://jlcpcb.com/capabilities/pcb-capabilities) and comparing my vias, mine actually is a giant. The minimum vias hole JLCPCB can commit is 0.5mm, so I can tweak the EaglePCB software to reduce it from 0.7mm.
So, this is the minimum spec for JLCPCB’s vias, so, I will have to tweak the EaglePCB software later.
The good thing is that the placement for the four 3mm LEDs are good and they fit in nicely. But I will have to see how they behave once I soldered them onto the board. I might want to use the normal technique, which is to solder one leg first, align it and then solder the remaining leg. Still, the first thing is, I will need to make sure the 555 IC is OK.
