Arduino Development Thread

[neo__04]

Well, Got my Arduino Uno, got a 16x2 lcd shield, a few breadboards and protoshields and have a heap of other stuff coming from china. Can't wait to get up and running.

Got plenty of flashy led's happing so far, and I can hello world the LCD no worries. Im on my way!!

Any particular library you guys use for an LCD menu?

 

[browndog]

I also have put together a Bonjuino and ordered lots of bit from ebay. Now, time to learn about electronics and programming. I took the board round to Bonj's house from him to check the circuits and when he took a look at my soldering, was somewhat lost for words and replied with a polite "that's interesting"


Looks OK from this side!

cheers

Browndog

edit: spellin

 

[matho]

I also have put together a Bonjuino and ordered lots of bit from ebay. Now, time to learn about electronics and programming. I took the board round to Bonj's house from him to check the circuits and when he took a look at my soldering, was somewhat lost for words and replied with a polite "that's interesting"

View attachment 50835
Looks OK from this side!

cheers

Browndog

edit: spellin

browndog that chip looks like it is around the wrong way( or i put mine in wrong ) THIS is a Photo of bonj's.

Bonj could you please confirm

cheers

ps looks good mate

 

[browndog]

browndog that chip looks like it is around the wrong way( or i put mine in wrong ) THIS is a Photo of bonj's.

Bonj could you please confirm

cheers

ps looks good mate

You are dead right Matho, it is in the wrong way round and Bonj corrected it when I dropped it off to him, he also turned the LED around too.

 

[kirem]

I took the board round to Bonj's house from him to check the circuits and when he took a look at my soldering, was somewhat lost for words and replied with a polite "that's interesting"

View attachment 50836

 

[bonj]

browndog that chip looks like it is around the wrong way( or i put mine in wrong ) THIS is a Photo of bonj's.

Bonj could you please confirm

cheers

ps looks good mate

Yep, that chip is the wrong way around and as Browndog said, has been corrected. The silkscreen shows the correct orientation (the little semicircular indentation, that sticks out further than the IC socket)

 

[matho]

I'm going to etch up a prototype probably this weekend so that i can start to play with the bonjuino
here are the top and bottom artwork and the top and bottom component locations

View attachment Braumiser_top.pdf

View attachment Braumiser_bottom.pdf

View attachment Braumiser_place_top.pdf

View attachment Braumiser_place_bottom.pdf

they are mostly 1mm (40mills) tracks and the pads are large and so are the via's, I found anything under 1/2 mm (20mills) doesn't come out that well with home etching.

this is the first time i have tried to etch a 2 sided board so wish me luck

cheers

 

[browndog]

I'm going to etch up a prototype probably this weekend so that i can start to play with the bonjuino
here are the top and bottom artwork and the top and bottom component locations

View attachment 50908

View attachment 50905

View attachment 50907

View attachment 50906

they are mostly 1mm (40mills) tracks and the pads are large and so are the via's, I found anything under 1/2 mm (20mills) doesn't come out that well with home etching.

this is the first time i have tried to etch a 2 sided board so wish me luck

cheers

So Matho, is that going to work specifically with a bonjuino or any arduino?

cheers

Browndog (forgive my ignorance, I know not of electronics)

 

[matho]

So Matho, is that going to work specifically with a bonjuino or any arduino?

cheers

Browndog (forgive my ignorance, I know not of electronics)

Any arduino mate, the braumiser shield is based on a prototype shield that i found on the net. It has 2 more pins on each side compared to the arduino for some reason, it won't effect putting an arduino board on though

 

[bonj]

Any arduino mate, the braumiser shield is based on a prototype shield that i found on the net. It has 2 more pins on each side compared to the arduino for some reason, it won't effect putting an arduino board on though

The arduino pro uses the surface mount version of the ATMEGA328, which has an extra 2 digital pins. I think that is the layout they use on the pro.

 

[matho]

etched the board yesterday, it went ok the top and bottom didn't quite line up but nothing too drastic, for my other boards it was using ammonium persulfate that was about 10 years old, it took about 45min to etch the boards, I had to buy some new stuff and it took 5min to etch the board



this is the bottom of the board as you can see the LCD is going to get mounted there as well as the headers for the buttons



this is the top side of the board with the bonjuino plugged in.

now i have to work out how best to solder it up to make sure all the tracks that need to be continuous between the top and bottom are and then im waiting on parts from ebay and after that i can start to play around with some code

cheers matho

 

[bonj]

View attachment 50979
this is the top side of the board with the bonjuino plugged in.

Looking good matho... the layer alignment doesn't seem to be too far off.

 

[Peter Wadey]

.....
now i have to work out how best to solder it up to make sure all the tracks that need to be continuous between the top and bottom are.....
cheers matho

Hi Matho,
Poor mans PTH (Plated Through Hole) = tinned copper wire inserted & soldered to both layers.
If you don't have any on a reel, the offcuts from trimming leaded components may be suitable.

NB: You have a via under R10, so you'll need to do this before mounting R10.

Rgds,
Peter

 

[matho]

Hi Matho,
Poor mans PTH (Plated Through Hole) = tinned copper wire inserted & soldered to both layers.
If you don't have any on a reel, the offcuts from trimming leaded components may be suitable.

NB: You have a via under R10, so you'll need to do this before mounting R10.

Rgds,
Peter

thanks for that peter, I have just finished soldering it up, it took a fair while to do. The biggest problem was soldering both sides of a component like the terminal blocks, if i ever do a two sided board again i will make sure that the components solder one side only and all interconnection between the top layer and the bottom would be thru via's. Of course this wouldn't be a problem with a plated through hole board.

cheers steve

 

[matho]

I have been off work with a really bad case of the flu but it has given me time to play around with the design of the board there was over 600 errors when i did a design rule check, all which related to the silkscreen layers going over the stop masks so i spent time modifying the component packages to fix the problems. I also enlarged the tracks for the pump contacts, the relay is rated at 240v 5 amps so the tracks can handle 5 amps and I increased the clearances around those tracks, I didn't think having a ground plane only 10millis away from 240v would be a good idea so i removed the planes from that area. Making the prototype has shown a few problems that i have fixed up and I'm confident that the design is ready.



there is no point in getting anything made up until i have a program for it so thats the next step.

 

[vortex]

Not entirely Arduino related, but you guys clearly understand electronics very well, could someone please suggest what I need to control the voltage (and hence RPM) of a CPU fan? Fan is a 12v 80mm CPU fan max 0.14amp.

Long story short I have robbed an old PC for it's CPU fan to build a stir plate. 6V is way too fast for the stir plate to work, so I need a potentiometer or something similar. Jaycar were actually useless and could only suggest one potentiometer, however it would have been from stopped to flat out in 1/8th of a turn which is too sensitive.

Planning V2 of my stirplate to use an Arduino and LCD to program a specific fan RPM and the Arduino takes care of it; but until then I have starters to make next week and want V1 to work soon

 

[matho]

look into Pulse Width Modulation, the AVR chip that the arduino is based on has dedicated pins that has hardware driven PWM.
You then will need something that takes that 5v signal from the arduino and controls the fans current, the most appropriate thing would be a MOSFET i would think.
Look at the arduino site for key words like PWM, motor drives and potentiometers and that should give you enough to get started.


cheers

 

[vortex]

look into Pulse Width Modulation, the AVR chip that the arduino is based on has dedicated pins that has hardware driven PWM.
You then will need something that takes that 5v signal from the arduino and controls the fans current, the most appropriate thing would be a MOSFET i would think.
Look at the arduino site for key words like PWM, motor drives and potentiometers and that should give you enough to get started.

Thanks, have that sorted for now
Do you have any suggestions for a potentiometer that will work before I get around to making the Arduino do all the work?

 

[benno1973]

Lots of people use these LED dimmers off ebay. Otherwise, if you want to control the voltage, you could always buy a variable voltage power pack?

 

[matho]

Thanks, have that sorted for now
Do you have any suggestions for a potentiometer that will work before I get around to making the Arduino do all the work?

probably a 10k or 5k linear pot will do, all you want it to do is act as a voltage divider, connect the 2 fixed sides between 5+ and ground and the wiper to an analog input on the arduino. You then use the ADC on the arduino to convert that voltage to a digital number and then use that number to control the PWM so when you turn the pot up or down the PWM goes up or down making the fan go faster or slower

cheers