Bitfogav's USB Dev Board

[bitfogav]

Awhile ago I made a USB Dev board from etching chemicals, and put together a simple PC application to communicate to the microcontroller, Ive always wanted to revisit the dev board but make it on a smaller scale. (as in use smd smt parts)

The original project was posted here if you would like to see my old usb board
http://digital-diy.com/forum/visual-bas ... -t917.html

So here is my new design that ive just sent of to iteadstudio pcb, its uses the 5cm x 5cm board.

usbdev2.jpg (69.68 KiB) Viewed 14551 times

3D example using Diptrace

3dimageusb2.jpg (22.66 KiB) Viewed 14551 times

[brad]

I was writing a reply to this last night and then my site seemed to crash! It looks good now though.

Anyway - this is a fantastic project, Did you program the visual basic app yourself? This is something that I have wanted to look into for a while. It would be great to have an easy to use app where people can plug their device straight into USB and then load data onto it - maybe some game data or something for one of my LED game systems.

I am certainly going to look into this some more!

[bitfogav]

Anyway - this is a fantastic project, Did you program the visual basic app yourself? This is something that I have wanted to look into for a while. It would be great to have an easy to use app where people can plug their device straight into USB and then load data onto it - maybe some game data or something for one of my LED game systems.

I am certainly going to look into this some more!

The app uses a DLL file to do most of the comms from the app to the microcontroller and vise versa, Ive used some of Grahams subroutines from his HID Visual Basic app, the rest of the app is something I put together.

It wouldn't be hard at all to make a app to load data onto the microcontroller for a game?, USB uses two data packets to communicate one as a inBuffer and one as a outBuffer, you could always use one of the first bytes as a command byte and then send the rest of the bytes (packet) with all the game data.

[brad]

Thanks for the info bitfogav. This is on my to do list over Christmas for sure!

[bitfogav]

I now have my batch of pcb's and I have built one for testing. I'm very pleased how the board as turned out from iTeadstudio.

Heres a quick video to show what the board turned out like!

[brad]

Well, well - look who had an extra $5 for the fancy blue soldermask!

Those boards are looking great - how nice is it to have something that you have designed, completely finished and looking just as good as a professional product

[bitfogav]

Well, well - look who had an extra $5 for the fancy blue soldermask!

Those boards are looking great - how nice is it to have something that you have designed, completely finished and looking just as good as a professional product

Yeah I thought the fancy blue soldermask looked the best! And its surely an impressive experience receiving your own designed boards.. Even more fun when you have built one up and got it working as treat! Heres some more pictures of the first board going through the soldering flow process.

Solder paste added to the board

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Components added to the board before the flow process

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the board fits onto a breadboard

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[brad]

Where did you get your stencil from?

[bitfogav]

I got it from the place you pointed out Brad (not sure if it was in a PM or another post now)

http://www.smtstencil.co.uk - One of the cheapest places I have seen for a stencil and the added bonus is that you can have two designs put onto one A4 size sheet (depending on the size of your design) but perfect if you have two 10cm x 10cm Or 5cm X 5cm iteadstudio open pcb designs.

[brad]

Now I remember!

Yes, they are very cheap and the good thing for you is that they are based in the UK (should be super quick postage for you)