WEEK 10

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WEEK ·10·

OUTPUT DEVICES

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

1. add an output device to a microcontroller board you've designed and program it to do something

1. MAKING THE PCB FOR LCD SCREEN

I decided to make the PCB for an LCD screen. I used the Eagle's fablab library and also the library. Which you can find here.

This is Eagle's view board. Here you can see the size of each component. The potentiometer is significantly large.

To export the file you must turn off the layers leaving only Top and Pads on.

When I exported the frame and loaded the file in the Fab Module the measurements came out very large. I tried several times but the error persisted. Finally I discovered that the error occurred when exporting the file from the Mac, when exporting the file from a Pc it came out without problems and the Fab Module recognized the correct measures.

For some reason, when exporting the file traces the numbers continued to appear. I check that the layers were off, I did the export from Mac and from Pc and they continued to appear, so I paint them in Paint.

The frame file exported from Pc came out without error.

This is the Traces file with the numbers painted in Paint.

I mill the PCB in the Modela machine using the 1/64 drill mill for the traces and 1/32 for the cut of the frame.

That's how the traces end up looking.. The frame was not cut completely and I had to finish cutting it with an olfa knife.

I used the dremel to drill the circles in the PCB.

This is the LCD with the soldered pins.

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3. PROGRAMMING

I program my board in Arduino. In the file menu> examples> LiquidCrystal we find HelloWorld programming. i used and edit this program for my card.

I bought an FTDI cable and it should be installed on my computer. So I looked for the installer in the following link.

This is the example of HelloWorld programming. I had to change the number of my pins since this example is made for an arduino board.

The first time I tried to upload the program I had problems. I tried it several times and it seemed to have no solution. I changed my Fabduino (I made two in week 8) and with the second one I worked.

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2. WELDING AND CONNECTING

I bought a Got holder. With this it was easy enough to hold the LCD screen while soldering the Pin header.

This is how the LCD screen is soldered to the plate.

On the back side is the potentiometer. As seen in the photo the potentiometer occupies a significant place in relation to the rest of the PCB.

When the board is connected via the FTDI cable to the computer, the led screen light comes on. With the potentiometer we can control the intensity of light on the LCD.

This is how the plate looks with the cables that are connected to the Fabduino. You can check the connection by viewing my page for week 8

Finally, you can see all the connected parts. The LCD screen connected to the board, which is connected to the Fabduino and to the computer.

This is the Fabduino I made in week 8

Following this scheme is very easy to connect the cables knowing which are VCC and GND.

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DOWNLOAD FILES