About 5 days ago, the circuit boards has arrived and you can say, I was overjoyed because this signals the completion of the prototyping stage and into the production stage. As usual, a small project grew into a sizeable challenge and the saving grace was that I was able to learn a few things from it.
At this new stage, I am already beset with at least two serious problems. The first was the Manual which, because of some last minute changes, I could not go ahead with the printing. Right after that would be to find a printing shop that would be able to produce the manual on a small run for a reasonable price. The second issue is to make sure there are enough components to completely populate the circuit board. To be honest, both of these challenges has one common denominator; moar money.
The chip I am using comes from Microchip and it is my habit to source form them directly. Despite the costs, I am guaranteed that they are genuine. Here is the PIC12F629I/SN in SOIC-8 form, held securely by the SOIC-DIL adaptor. Below that is the Blue PCB which is a tester/ programmer adaptor which is of my own design.
Here is my programmer/tester adaptor testing the programmed microcontroller. As most of my projects are lighting based, each of the 5 white diffused LEDs represents a port. The three LEDs (Ports A0, A2 & A4) lighting up with A2 blinking means the program is working. One day, I will design version 2.0 of this tester/ programmer adaptor as there are some shortcomings.
With most of the components (except switches, connectors and LEDs) soldered in, I was able to test the status of the microcontroller. Here, as long as the Ice Blue LED is blinking correctly, I am OK with it. There are five LEDs to be soldered on to the board, and right now, I only tested one of them. Later on, with more cash in hand, I would be able to order more components and then be able to test the board fully. For now, I can only do what is possible with the resources at hand. I also need to clean up the burn brown solder flux as well.
Where to get what (no, not the Boards and I have not produced them, not even a link to sell them yet):
