Author Topic: The Living PCB Design Thread  (Read 382550 times)

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Offline bpiphany

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #850 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 05:58:24 »
And you haven't erased the bootloader when doing ISP programming? I don't remember what linux says about a atmega without anything USB on it. And I have no idea how Windows reacts to it.

Offline Zustiur

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #851 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 06:24:36 »
Not that I'm aware of no. All I did was run a command to write the hex file onto the chip.
avrdude -c usbtiny -p m32u4 -U flash:w:zusdox2.hex:i

The board I haven't flashed yet doesn't respond to USB either. Any idea what should happen detection-wise with a baseline atmega32u4-au chip? I expected it to at least show up as an unrecognized device but as I said, no indication what-so-ever that Windows detected the connection.

Could it be something to do with the fuse bits? Maybe I need to enable USB somehow? I can't see anything about that in the datasheet, but I have a very hard time understanding the datasheet, so I may have missed something important.
« Last Edit: Mon, 23 March 2020, 06:32:13 by Zustiur »

Offline bpiphany

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #852 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 06:43:58 »
The AU chips should come with bootloader, and running with crystal oscillator input as default. I think you should have the correct fuse bits unless you changed them.

It does however sound like you have something going on with the power. You get power through the ISP programmer, but not over USB. If you have a blinky program it should run when you connect USB power as well.

You probably erased the bootloader when ISP programming though. I don't think you can program the chip without erasing it.

Offline Zustiur

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #853 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 07:38:09 »
Did my schematic look ok at least? (last post page 17)

I just though to compare some readings with a teensy. I don't really know what I'm looking for, but the results could be a clue. I'm using the Diode/continuity testing option on my multimeter.
On the Teensy: Pins 1 & 5 show 457. On my board, pins 1 &5 show 641
Or in other words, when one probe is on GND and the other is on VBUS I get different readings between Teensy and my board. Whether that's meaningful or not... I don't know.



Offline bpiphany

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #854 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 08:10:04 »
If you have a very simple blinky program, that doesn't try to initiate any USB things or something at start-up, it should just kick off when you supply 5V on the rail. If it doesn't I would suspect you are not getting power from USB. What do you get if you measure VCC-GND with USB plugged in?

Offline gipetto

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #855 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 09:55:05 »
vbus is missing a 10uf decoupling cap and from what i can see you have only one one mcu pin wired up. check out other keyboard schematics, uvcc, avcc, vcc should all be connected to the usb port

Offline Zustiur

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #856 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 18:43:11 »
vbus is missing a 10uf decoupling cap and from what i can see you have only one one mcu pin wired up. check out other keyboard schematics, uvcc, avcc, vcc should all be connected to the usb port

I've been very puzzled about that 10uf decoupling cap. I thought from what I read, 10uf was the maximum total you can use, not the recommendation for a single capacitor. It's all very confusing.
All of my uvcc avcc vcc pins are connected to the VCC in the schematic. They all connect to each other one way or another and therefore ... Wait, I just checked my schematic vs the ones I was referencing. I think I see the problem you're talking about now. I'll see what I can do to resolve it with hook up wires.


==Edit==
BINGO.
Connecting Pin 1 of USB to a point on my VCC line makes the light blink. I should be able to resolve it from here!

I'd still appreciate a clear answer on the 10uf cap issue though. Is it necessary? Recommended? Max of 10uf? 10uf cap specifically needed on that line? I'm very lost on that particular issue.
« Last Edit: Mon, 23 March 2020, 18:49:11 by Zustiur »

Offline gipetto

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #857 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 19:06:08 »
I don't understand capacitor sizing tbh, like many I copy reference designs. generally in most electronics there's one big smoothing capacitor which works as a primitive voltage regulator. Usb has a limit on capacitance so that's why you won't see much larger values. Then there's a small decoupling capacitor for each pin, to keep ac away from sensitive circuits.

Offline kelvinhall05

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #858 on: Mon, 23 March 2020, 19:26:56 »
Hi guys, I spent a few hours today learning KiCAD and making a schematic and then a PCB. I've ran a DRC and everything appears to be fine, and I've checked in the 3D viewer and it looks great. I uploaded to JLCPCB and it also looks fine there, but I would love if someone who knows what they're doing could check it for me before I buy some PCBs and find out I forgot something important lol. Additionally, I would love some help making the edge cut/border, as I can't figure out how to do rounded corners and am not certain if I did it right.

tl;dr: Can I have help with edge cuts, and is my PCB otherwise ready to be sent to JLC? Thanks!

Link with gerber file zip and KiCAD_PCB file, hopefully this is enough:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15saIauaqHZDdibvOiQnLP2Bm9QKa6A7r/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14sWQL_ujHY77a7lsjta9pp-V5MFkGECz/view?usp=sharing

Offline bpiphany

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #859 on: Tue, 24 March 2020, 02:41:16 »
I'd still appreciate a clear answer on the 10uf cap issue though. Is it necessary? Recommended? Max of 10uf? 10uf cap specifically needed on that line? I'm very lost on that particular issue.

There is some specification saying you are only guaranteed to be able to have 10µF without inrush current limiting on USB. It's probably going to be ok if it is slightly more. But if you use 4.7µF like in that schematic and then a bunch of 1µF and 100nF caps all around for all sorts of reasons you are probably going to have enough decoupling anyway. Depending on the type of loads you circuit needs to handle in other ways. For the microcontroller it is surely going to be suffieicent.

Offline gipetto

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #860 on: Tue, 24 March 2020, 06:29:48 »
Hi guys, I spent a few hours today learning KiCAD and making a schematic and then a PCB. I've ran a DRC and everything appears to be fine, and I've checked in the 3D viewer and it looks great. I uploaded to JLCPCB and it also looks fine there, but I would love if someone who knows what they're doing could check it for me before I buy some PCBs and find out I forgot something important lol. Additionally, I would love some help making the edge cut/border, as I can't figure out how to do rounded corners and am not certain if I did it right.

tl;dr: Can I have help with edge cuts, and is my PCB otherwise ready to be sent to JLC? Thanks!

Link with gerber file zip and KiCAD_PCB file, hopefully this is enough:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15saIauaqHZDdibvOiQnLP2Bm9QKa6A7r/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14sWQL_ujHY77a7lsjta9pp-V5MFkGECz/view?usp=sharing

from what i can see only half your switch contacts are routed. I'm not familiar with alps and I don't know what is your strategy for stabilizers.

Offline Zustiur

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #861 on: Tue, 24 March 2020, 07:26:26 »
I had a look too kelvinhall, I agree with gipetto. It looks like you've only connected your rows, haven't connected any columns and haven't connected any of your switches to your diodes. When I run DRC on your PCB, yes it shows 0 'Problems' but on the other tab it shows 60 Unconnected Items. Turning on the Ratsnest makes this really obvious.
Your edge cuts are fine if you want sharp corners. If you want curved corners, you have to use the 'Add graphic arc' tool when you have the Edge Cuts layer selected. For a simple rectangular board like yours, you'd need 4 straight lines and 4 90 dregree arcs. Each line segment is a separate 'object' and can be manipulated individually. You may have been tricked by the way 'Add graphic line' seems to draw connected lines.


Thanks bpiphany, that's more or less what I thought with the 10uf capacitor 'limit'. My board is appearing in USB and responding now. Currently I'm trying to figure out where I've gone wrong that's causing only the first 2 rows to function. I think I've probably missed a comma somewhere in TMK, but at least that's in the programming realm where I'm more comfortable. Thanks again to you and gipetto for assisting with the hardware diagnosis.

Offline kelvinhall05

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #862 on: Tue, 24 March 2020, 08:27:47 »
Hi guys, I spent a few hours today learning KiCAD and making a schematic and then a PCB. I've ran a DRC and everything appears to be fine, and I've checked in the 3D viewer and it looks great. I uploaded to JLCPCB and it also looks fine there, but I would love if someone who knows what they're doing could check it for me before I buy some PCBs and find out I forgot something important lol. Additionally, I would love some help making the edge cut/border, as I can't figure out how to do rounded corners and am not certain if I did it right.

tl;dr: Can I have help with edge cuts, and is my PCB otherwise ready to be sent to JLC? Thanks!

Link with gerber file zip and KiCAD_PCB file, hopefully this is enough:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15saIauaqHZDdibvOiQnLP2Bm9QKa6A7r/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14sWQL_ujHY77a7lsjta9pp-V5MFkGECz/view?usp=sharing

from what i can see only half your switch contacts are routed. I'm not familiar with alps and I don't know what is your strategy for stabilizers.
Alps stabs go on the plate, but I'll check my switches, thanks.

Offline MechKeys122

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #863 on: Fri, 01 May 2020, 20:12:10 »
Edit: Nevermind. I think i figured it out.
« Last Edit: Mon, 04 May 2020, 22:18:06 by MechKeys122 »

Offline kelvinhall05

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #864 on: Thu, 14 May 2020, 08:16:18 »
Hi guys, are there standard sizes for the spacing between keyswitches for keys bigger than 1u?

Offline jouz

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #865 on: Thu, 14 May 2020, 08:51:18 »
All switches are in the center of the keycap (except for some legacy things like stepped capslock, 6u spacebars with off-center stem).

You can easily calculate the distance between the centers (i.e. switch stem position) of two adjacent keys:

If you have a 1u next to a 1.25u (u = key units, which is multiples of 19.05mm):

      1u/2       +     1.25u/2
 = (19.05mm*1)/2 + (19.05mm*1.25)/2
 =  21.43125mm.


Offline kelvinhall05

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #866 on: Thu, 14 May 2020, 09:21:20 »
All switches are in the center of the keycap (except for some legacy things like stepped capslock, 6u spacebars with off-center stem).

You can easily calculate the distance between the centers (i.e. switch stem position) of two adjacent keys:

If you have a 1u next to a 1.25u (u = key units, which is multiples of 19.05mm):

      1u/2       +     1.25u/2
 = (19.05mm*1)/2 + (19.05mm*1.25)/2
 =  21.43125mm.


Cool, thanks :D

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #867 on: Sat, 16 May 2020, 04:48:53 »
Hi, so I made a pcb for a macropad powered by a pro micro and was wondering if anyone would be willing to have a quick look at it and see if there are any issues or even just ways of routing the traces more neatly.

Thanks in advance.

Front of board v
* top.svg (371.99 kB - downloaded 97 times.)
242675-1

Back of board
* bottom.svg (323.46 kB - downloaded 86 times.)
242677-3

Schematic
242671-4

Screenshot of pcb with some layers hidden to make it easier to see the traces.
242673-5

Offline gipetto

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #868 on: Sat, 16 May 2020, 07:31:51 »
it looks functional but i'd place all the diodes in the same direction to avoid confusion over polarity.

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #869 on: Sun, 17 May 2020, 06:30:51 »
it looks functional but i'd place all the diodes in the same direction to avoid confusion over polarity.

Like this:
242760-0

Front:
242762-1

Back:
242764-2

If I keep it like this I will sort out the text direction and I might fix the spacing on the row with 5 diodes on. I could maybe make the number of diodes per row consistent but that will need quite a lot of work rerouting all the traces.


Offline gipetto

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #870 on: Sun, 17 May 2020, 11:12:39 »
that's fine. there's no real benefit to having one diode per switch, apart from tidiness or diagnosing faults without a pcb file. mostly you're trying to avoid faults in component assembly. you ran traces between two arduino pins in a few places. there is a chance of a solder bridge with that so it would be better if you could reconfigure the pinout to avoid crossing over to the inaccessible header side of the arduino.

Offline bpiphany

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #871 on: Mon, 18 May 2020, 06:16:04 »
there's no real benefit to having one diode per switch, apart from tidiness or diagnosing faults without a pcb file.

ghosting?

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #872 on: Mon, 18 May 2020, 11:28:28 »
that's fine. there's no real benefit to having one diode per switch, apart from tidiness or diagnosing faults without a pcb file. mostly you're trying to avoid faults in component assembly. you ran traces between two arduino pins in a few places. there is a chance of a solder bridge with that so it would be better if you could reconfigure the pinout to avoid crossing over to the inaccessible header side of the arduino.


there's no real benefit to having one diode per switch, apart from tidiness or diagnosing faults without a pcb file.

ghosting?


I thought it was necessary to have one diode per switch for the matrix to work and not have issues like ghosting. I mean I have always called this design of connecting switches in a grid a diode matrix.
If I didn't have one diode per switch, how many would I have, none?

I know that the traces could be neater and I don't fully understand the concept of connecting different sections without using traces. I think I only did it for the reset switch ground. I could change the pinout for the pro micro, but there is already a 5x4 macropad called numpad20 with that pinout and it's here: https://config.qmk.fm/#/handwired/numpad20/LAYOUT
I decided it was easier to keep things consistent and just use that one. There doesn't need to be two 5x4 macropads that are the same except for the pinout.

Also, I think I might move the diodes around again because I don't like how it looks. Furthermore, there is a thicker band on the silkscreen image of the diode pointing towards the square so it shouldn't be too hard to tell which way round the diode goes. I might even modify the footprint to have the diode silkscreen on both sides.

Offline gipetto

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #873 on: Mon, 18 May 2020, 14:59:50 »
sorry i meant. to say there's no real benefit to having each switches diode located nearby to the switch.

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #874 on: Tue, 19 May 2020, 03:55:29 »
sorry i meant. to say there's no real benefit to having each switches diode located nearby to the switch.

Ah ok. I could put 5 diodes per row and arrange them so they look neat. The only issue will be that the traces will be a lot more complicated and probably look messier. I will try that though.

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #875 on: Tue, 19 May 2020, 11:13:15 »
I have now put all the diodes so that they are 5 per row and evenly spaced, altered the diode numbering system to be by row instead of by column. I also shifted some around to make the traces shorter and less messy.
I think it looks nicer than the original diode layout. Hopefully the traces won't be too much of a mess.

242967-0

Offline Zustiur

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #876 on: Thu, 21 May 2020, 23:52:47 »
I normally put the sides on the underside of the PCB within the boundary of the switch it's attached to. That keeps things nice and neat. That wouldn't work with through hole diodes though.

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #877 on: Fri, 22 May 2020, 08:21:31 »
I normally put the sides on the underside of the PCB within the boundary of the switch it's attached to. That keeps things nice and neat. That wouldn't work with through hole diodes though.

I originally put them there, I put all the traces in and it was neat, but I realised it wouldn't fit and had to redo all the traces. How I have it currently, only a basic soldering iron, solder, a screwdriver, and pliers are needed to assemble it. I'm happy to have the hybrid ones that allow for SMD and TH diodes but I'd rather not have to deal with those tiny SMD diodes.



I have finished wiring all the traces. Not as messy as I thought it might be but I think it could be better.
Front:
243228-0

Back:
243230-1

I'm not sure if the filled zones are important at all. They are set to ground on both sides of the board and the only thing that uses them is the reset switch, which could just have a trace running to it anyway. With where the traces run on the front they create large gaps which don't look great. What should I do with them?

Offline Fabi

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #878 on: Fri, 22 May 2020, 10:25:31 »
I normally put the sides on the underside of the PCB within the boundary of the switch it's attached to. That keeps things nice and neat. That wouldn't work with through hole diodes though.

I originally put them there, I put all the traces in and it was neat, but I realised it wouldn't fit and had to redo all the traces. How I have it currently, only a basic soldering iron, solder, a screwdriver, and pliers are needed to assemble it. I'm happy to have the hybrid ones that allow for SMD and TH diodes but I'd rather not have to deal with those tiny SMD diodes.



I have finished wiring all the traces. Not as messy as I thought it might be but I think it could be better.
Front:
(Attachment Link)

Back:
(Attachment Link)

I'm not sure if the filled zones are important at all. They are set to ground on both sides of the board and the only thing that uses them is the reset switch, which could just have a trace running to it anyway. With where the traces run on the front they create large gaps which don't look great. What should I do with them?
For the zones: just place a via in a non filled area, so that front and backside are connected.

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #879 on: Fri, 22 May 2020, 10:46:00 »
For the zones: just place a via in a non filled area, so that front and backside are connected.

That would solve the problem of unfilled zones, but it doesn't answer the question of their need and whether there is a better use of zones or to not have them at all. Is it a good idea to have 4 zones on the back and have them set to col0, col1, col2, and col3? And then maybe have something similar for the front.

Offline Fabi

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #880 on: Fri, 22 May 2020, 16:15:16 »
I am really not an expert on this, but I think you would want a ground plane beneath the MCU and the crystal for shielding reasons?
One reason for planes all over the PCB I can think of is related to etching the PCB. Removing all the copper just wastes to much acid.
If I am wrong, feel free to correct me.

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #881 on: Sun, 24 May 2020, 04:51:49 »
Hmm ok. I'm fairly new to all of this. I followed this guide https://github.com/ruiqimao/keyboard-pcb-guide and it explains the process well, but understandably doesn't go into the more technical aspects like that so I hadn't even thought about that. The guide also showed the process for a one board solution with smd components, whereas I am using a pro micro so it's on a separate board entirely and is attached to the back with the side that has all the components on facing towards the main pcb. So that might cause some issues because of their proximity (around 1 or 2mm) but I'm really not sure if the crystal is that sensitive to external factors.
243350-0
I could do something like this to have a ground plane above the pro micro (blue) and have the rest of the pcb with the multi-zone layout, with each red zone having a different column value as that would make more use of the zones (see crudely annotated diagram). Either that or I just add a lot more vias to fill both sides with the ground planes despite only one component making use of the ground connection. Having said that the board does look better with both sides filled properly, it just adds so many more vias.
Front:
243352-1
Back:
243354-2

Offline bpiphany

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #882 on: Sun, 24 May 2020, 12:57:11 »
As long as you are not using hundreds of vias you don't need to think twice about it. Relative to the size of the board it is nothing.

Whether you should pour planes or not all over the board I can't really say. I recon it uses more etchant, but on the other hand I'm certain the copper will in turn be recycled by the board house, to their benefit is my guess.

I don't know if ground planes add any noise immunity or EMI benefits, but commercial boards don't seem to have any.

Offline vvp

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #883 on: Mon, 25 May 2020, 02:43:03 »
I don't know if ground planes add any noise immunity or EMI benefits, but commercial boards don't seem to have any.
I think that is because switch contact "ringing" is much bigger when compared to ground/power plate shielding. One already needs to debounce because of switches and that takes care of EMI disturbances too. So they save copper by not using ground/power plates.

Offline Thomas73951

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #884 on: Mon, 25 May 2020, 16:05:39 »
As long as you are not using hundreds of vias you don't need to think twice about it. Relative to the size of the board it is nothing.
I initially saw vias as something that should be minimised as most of them can be removed with some clever placement of traces. The original design only had one via. But yeah it doesn't really matter that much.



I don't know if ground planes add any noise immunity or EMI benefits, but commercial boards don't seem to have any.
I think that is because switch contact "ringing" is much bigger when compared to ground/power plate shielding. One already needs to debounce because of switches and that takes care of EMI disturbances too. So they save copper by not using ground/power plates.

Whether you should pour planes or not all over the board I can't really say. I recon it uses more etchant, but on the other hand I'm certain the copper will in turn be recycled by the board house, to their benefit is my guess.

I guess I can just do whatever I think looks best then. Although I'm new to designing pcbs and (computer) keyboards, I have done a lot of other electronics projects, mostly on breadboard. When I made a synthesiser (with a voltage controlled oscillator). The keyboard it had was made on stripboard and quite basic. When a key was pressed it outputted a specific voltage with the maximum being 1v. I don't remember what I did to fix it, but I did have issues where putting my hand near the board would change the frequency of the note played and make a nasty buzzing sound. I was only affecting the signal out with a wave of amplitude around 30mV but it was enough interference to cause issues there.
I doubt anyone has ever had issues like that with a keyboard using a diode matrix. 

Offline bpiphany

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #885 on: Tue, 26 May 2020, 00:44:35 »
Breadboards are notoriously bad for signal integrity though. You have long strips of antennas packed tightly together interacting both with each other and the surroundings. It's also easy to cheat and have a lot of floating inputs hooked up to those antennas when mocking things together on breadboard.

Offline kelvinhall05

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #886 on: Thu, 04 June 2020, 09:38:33 »
Hi guys, does anyone know what the voltage for Alps SKCL LEDs is? Just 5V? How do I connect it to a Pro Micro (one pin to ground, can the other pin just go to any controllable pin on the Pro Micro? I was thinking ironically enough to use the pins meant for the onboard LEDs as my matrix uses all the other pins)? Thanks!

Offline pabile

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #887 on: Sun, 23 August 2020, 07:46:59 »
good day, gh. where do PWR_FLAG connects? I am trying to redo this schematics in easyeda hoping that i can understand it better https://github.com/joric/nrfmicro/releases/download/1.3/nrfmicro-1.3-schematic.pdf

250164-0

Offline hanya

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #888 on: Sun, 23 August 2020, 08:21:34 »
good day, gh. where do PWR_FLAG connects? I am trying to redo this schematics in easyeda hoping that i can understand it better ...
You need power symbol for power line such as VBUS and VOUT of the regulator. Then connect PWR_FLAG to the lines like for GND.
PFU HHKB JP, Sanwa MA-TB38 trackball

Offline pabile

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #889 on: Sun, 23 August 2020, 08:43:49 »
You need power symbol for power line such as VBUS and VOUT of the regulator. Then connect PWR_FLAG to the lines like for GND.

thanks, hanya. follow up question...in the schematics i posted, PWR_FLAG is directly connected to GND. i think they should not be directly connected? should i disconnect it instead? apologies for my ignorance.

https://github.com/joric/nrfmicro/releases/download/1.3/nrfmicro-1.3-schematic.pdf

Offline hanya

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #890 on: Mon, 24 August 2020, 21:56:45 »
thanks, hanya. follow up question...in the schematics i posted, PWR_FLAG is directly connected to GND. i think they should not be directly connected? should i disconnect it instead? apologies for my ignorance.
It is OK, you can connect where you want. I sometimes connect like that and put them near the corner of the sheet. Since the flags needs only by KiCAD.
PFU HHKB JP, Sanwa MA-TB38 trackball

Offline pabile

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #891 on: Mon, 31 August 2020, 04:17:29 »
It is OK, you can connect where you want. I sometimes connect like that and put them near the corner of the sheet. Since the flags needs only by KiCAD.

thanks, hanya!

Offline robotictomato

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Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #892 on: Sat, 12 September 2020, 16:33:59 »
Hello everyone - I'm pretty new to PCB design, but I wanted to try my hand at adding full backspace capability to the Arisu PCB by FateNozomi. I ran through a few tutorials from ai03, and given that the change was relatively minor went for it.

I would really appreciate it if someone with more experience would take a quick look and let me know if it looks alright, or if there is a better approach before I have PCBs cut.

I forked the original files and created a public repo on Github. You can find them here: https://github.com/andygunn/arisu-pcb-1.1-fb

You can see the change here in the render:
251614-0
251616-1

I really appreciate it! Geekhack has been a great place to learn about all of this, thanks to you all.

Offline coarse

  • * Maker
  • Posts: 37
    • Coarse Keys
Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #893 on: Mon, 14 September 2020, 07:32:04 »
Hello everyone - I'm pretty new to PCB design, but I wanted to try my hand at adding full backspace capability to the Arisu PCB by FateNozomi. I ran through a few tutorials from ai03, and given that the change was relatively minor went for it.

I would really appreciate it if someone with more experience would take a quick look and let me know if it looks alright, or if there is a better approach before I have PCBs cut.

I forked the original files and created a public repo on Github. You can find them here: https://github.com/andygunn/arisu-pcb-1.1-fb

You can see the change here in the render:

I really appreciate it! Geekhack has been a great place to learn about all of this, thanks to you all.
you missed out on the diode. it needs to be adjusted since its too close to the stabilizer hole

Offline robotictomato

  • Posts: 35
  • Location: DC, USA
Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #894 on: Mon, 14 September 2020, 08:41:06 »
you missed out on the diode. it needs to be adjusted since its too close to the stabilizer hole

Thank you. I did miss that. I will go back and fix that soon.

Does everything else look acceptable? Does the trace routing above the upper stabilizer holes look okay? I did have to cut out part of the pad on one of the switch contacts, but I have seen that before and I don't think it will cause an issue in either configuration (full backspace or split backspace).

I updated the diode position and adjusted a few traces:
251701-0251703-1

The files are updated in Github if anyone wants to take a closer look.
« Last Edit: Mon, 14 September 2020, 20:56:56 by robotictomato »

Offline Thomas73951

  • Posts: 28
  • Location: UK
Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #895 on: Mon, 26 July 2021, 06:31:53 »
Hi, I've nearly finished my PCB, but I noticed something odd.




Looking at the gerber view of pcbway, it shows 2 sets of drill. Is this a problem or is it normal?

More images:

More

Offline Applet

  • Posts: 487
  • Location: Sweden
Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #896 on: Tue, 27 July 2021, 03:49:54 »
Hi, I've nearly finished my PCB, but I noticed something odd.

Show Image



Looking at the gerber view of pcbway, it shows 2 sets of drill. Is this a problem or is it normal?

More images:

More
Show Image
Show Image

This is normal, one set is plated holes, one set is non-plated holes  :D

Offline Thomas73951

  • Posts: 28
  • Location: UK
Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #897 on: Tue, 27 July 2021, 04:34:09 »
This is normal, one set is plated holes, one set is non-plated holes  :D

Ah ok, that makes sense.

Thank you :)

Offline Thomas73951

  • Posts: 28
  • Location: UK
Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #898 on: Fri, 30 July 2021, 10:58:51 »
I put a silkscreen decal on one side of the pcb, it covers most of the pcb. I'm not sure if it will cause any issues, it isn't covering any solder pads but it does cover a lot of plated holes. Will this cause issues with the holes?




Offline hanya

  • Posts: 132
  • Location: Japan
Re: The Living PCB Design Thread
« Reply #899 on: Fri, 30 July 2021, 17:58:10 »
I put a silkscreen decal on one side of the pcb, it covers most of the pcb. I'm not sure if it will cause any issues, it isn't covering any solder pads but it does cover a lot of plated holes. Will this cause issues with the holes?
Try "Subtract soldermask from silkscreen" option to plot gerber file. Then check the resulting gerber file with its viewer.
PFU HHKB JP, Sanwa MA-TB38 trackball