Starter
|
Work started in April'21 on the development of this 'starter' maker PCB that uses just a few basic electronic components assembeld onto a small custom PCB, as shown above right. For use with a separate controlling device, this assembly can be connected to any of the main single board computer (SBC) Raspberry Pi's or any of the microcontrollers for which dedicated more extensive PCBs are also available or are being developed.
Importantly the assembly of the components onto the printed circuit board (PCB) of this Starter Maker PCB is a much less challenging soldering task, allowing an inexperienced maker to develop their soldering skills and to produce a working assembly that can be tested with range of Scratch and Python software.
The finalised PCB design has been extensively tested to validate the design, and this series of web pages documents the design and use of the Starter Maker PCB to enable a user to build up a basic 'library' of software methods, that can be extended by exploring further PCBs, as well the software being combined for the development of other projects.
The annotated image below shows how all components and the controlling device GPIO connector are assembled on the PCB:
All the software that has been developed for this Starter PCB is available for download here and the design for small 3D printed 'feet' that are use to support the assembled PCB can be downloaded from here.
The following links provide more details on various aspects of this evolving Starter Maker PCB project development:
Details for all the Maker PCB projects:
All the currently available maker project information: