Rab18’s Weblog


Designing PCB for Clock
November 25, 2007, 3:44 pm
Filed under: Designing PCB Using Curcuit Wizard

circuit-web1.jpg  real-world-pcb-for-web.jpg  finished-circuit-to-print.jpg

 1. Circuit Diagram                     2. Real world             3. Finished PCB

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4. Art worker                                               5. PCB For Clock Display 

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Protocircuit and the photo and the diagrams show the progression of the design process of the PCB. This procedure had a number of stages these were:

  •  Using Circuit wizard I designed the layout of my PCB. I Used 2×4 pin single-in-line (SIL) so I could feed the eight out-puts from the picaxe project board onto the PCB. I also used 2×6 pin SIL for the ribbon cable to run from the PCB to the Display PCB.
  • When the design was finished, I then converted the circuit diagram to a PCB layout. Circuit Wizard could only take this PCB layout to 94% efficiency. I then used circuit wizard tools to iron out any inefficiency in the design. During this process I had to actively delete, move and add components and lines. Extra time was spent on this part of the process. This was bacause in order to simplify the design of the display PCB, it would involve organising the 12 SIL pins. The 12 SIL pins were arranged in order from 1 to 12 with pin 1 connecting to pin 1 of the display this process was continued for all 12 pins.
  • The final part of this stage was to print out from art worker the finished PCB layouts onto acetate.


Hand Drawn Circuit Diagram
November 17, 2007, 6:46 pm
Filed under: Circuit Diagram

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This circuit diagram was used to simplify the layout of the circuit. I can now use this diagram and the protocircuit to design my final PCB layout before printing it in Art worker.   



Connecting Project board to Protocircuit
November 15, 2007, 1:07 am
Filed under: clock development protocircuit

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The next stage of the process involved connecting the picaxe project board to the protocircuit. The protocircuit is powered via the project board’s 4.5v battery pack.  A positive and ground is wired to the protocircuit from the project board. The four switches that connect to ground will be replaced with out- put pins 4,5,6,7 from the project board. Out-put pins 0,1,2,3 from the project board are connected to pins 6, 8,9,12 of the four digit display.  Now I know this circuit works I can start designing the layout of my PCB . It also allows me to start experimenting with programming.