Ok, I've been lax with the my posts and a few weeks have gone by. However, even though we are experiencing our brief period of non-inclement weather we refer to as 'summer', I have not been entirely idle.
I ordered a bunch of electronic parts for the controller box.
Including these LEDs from Bivar, which came in a fancy box and are somehow suggestive of marriage proposals.
I've not done enough PCB design work to be confident enough to order a board without building a prototype first. Normally I would just test the circuit on bread board, but this one has to handle AC distribution, so I decided to put one together on proto-board. After a lot of faffing around in Eagle CAD (candidate for the world's most un-intuitive CAD package) and time spent dragging the net for 3D models of the components, I settled on an enclosure size and cut the blank board to size.
A first go at the layout of the lower and upper levels. AC-DC supply, 5V relay and opto-isolator board.
The Arduino fits over the top.
And the LCD and keypad shield sit on top.
The models of the keypad shield PCB that I found on the internet don't quite match the one that I have. This meant that I spent a looooong time measuring the layout with calipers to figure out where the holes have to be cut in the enclosure box. This will be easier next time as I will design my own shield.
Four hours of setup for two minutes of cutting? Too late now if I got this wrong!
Thankfully, it fits.
The button hole cut-outs are a little on the large size. I think that the CAD model I used must be incorrect. Still, more than good enough for the prototype.
I ordered a bunch of electronic parts for the controller box.
Including these LEDs from Bivar, which came in a fancy box and are somehow suggestive of marriage proposals.
(With this LED, I thee wed?)
I've not done enough PCB design work to be confident enough to order a board without building a prototype first. Normally I would just test the circuit on bread board, but this one has to handle AC distribution, so I decided to put one together on proto-board. After a lot of faffing around in Eagle CAD (candidate for the world's most un-intuitive CAD package) and time spent dragging the net for 3D models of the components, I settled on an enclosure size and cut the blank board to size.
The Arduino fits over the top.
And the LCD and keypad shield sit on top.
The models of the keypad shield PCB that I found on the internet don't quite match the one that I have. This meant that I spent a looooong time measuring the layout with calipers to figure out where the holes have to be cut in the enclosure box. This will be easier next time as I will design my own shield.
Four hours of setup for two minutes of cutting? Too late now if I got this wrong!
Thankfully, it fits.
The button hole cut-outs are a little on the large size. I think that the CAD model I used must be incorrect. Still, more than good enough for the prototype.
No comments:
Post a Comment