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Friday, May 4, 2012

Hand Made Board - Finished!

   The Dremel drill bits from Amazon arrived.  They come in a packet of 4 and are 1/32".  Man, are they small!  They fit in the Dremel chuck nicely, but it took a bit of fiddling to get them in straight.  The problem with the Dremel is that the hold button needs to be depressed as you tighten.  The whole operation would be a lot easier with three hands.  I used my trusty Dremel drill press and banged out the holes.  It was very easy.  I took my time.  The copper around the holes actually nudge the bit where it needs to go.  The Dremel was set to 15,000 RPMs.  The bit dwells a bit at the top of the cut, then a smooth plunge finishes off each hole.  Here's the result:


  Soldering was very different from either a proto-board or a professional PCB.  The solder and heat want to go everywhere.  The ground plane was particularly a problem.  I have to admit, I rushed the soldering.  I was so excited that everything looked good.  I just wanted to see the board done.  Here's the top with the pins and sockets added:


  Here's a picture of the bottom solder that's as bad as the soldering job:


   I printed out a pin "cheat sheet" for the microcontroller in lieu of a stencil:


Now, to test it out with a hello world style blinking LED!

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