Board population

It’s been a few days since I got the new boards but I finally got a chance to populate my boards. The solder paste I’m using is supposed to work for 6 months without refrigeration. It’s now been just over a year (ordered Feb. 11th of last year as it turns out), so I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it works:

Easy Board V2 paste

As it turns out, it still works fine! And just because I didn’t document in my previous experiments with the paste, I’ll document it here. The spec for this paste says it melts at 183° C. So, I started the heat gun at 150° C for a couple of minutes to warm the board. Then every 30 seconds, I increased the temp by 10°. Once I hit 190, the solder melted quickly. I did have to go over some areas repeatedly to make sure everything got melted at once, but it all worked fine and the board looks like it worked well!

Board V2 soldered

 

Unfortunately, now I have to deal with the switches, speaker, mic, and battery before I can test. Looks like it will be a few more days… So far so good though!

New board arrived!!

It took a full two weeks this time, thanks to President’s Day, but the easy board V2 finally arrived!! Unfortunately, I’m quite busy at work and won’t be able to test it right away, but a quick fit test shows that it should work as long as the electronics are okay:

2014-02-23 11.40.27

Board fixed

While looking at the board today, I realized that it wasn’t just some holes that didn’t get drilled, it was ALL of them that weren’t mounting holes. So, none of my vias worked, so I can’t use this board to do testing of the actual circuit. 🙁

But, I did have time to fix all the problems I know about. I fixed the shape to cut off the edges so it should fit in the board. I increased the track size for the power rails because those seemed way too small to me. And I figured out how to combine the PTH and NPTH drill files into a single file so OSH Park can use it properly. Now that I understand better what I’m looking at, this board looks correct to me:

EasyBoard-V2

At least I can see all the drill holes now. Fortunately I got it ordered in time for tomorrow’s panel. Hopefully that one will get manufactured according to schedule and I’ll get the fixed board back quickly!

Board has arrived!!!!

It’s been only 9 days since I ordered boards, 4 of which were weekend days and yet I already have them in my hands!

Easy Board V1

 

But, it turns out there are a few problems with them. The speaker, mic, battery, and switch were all supposed to be through hole and I thought they looked correct on the 3D view of KiCad, but ended up being SMD pads. I can make this work for testing, but it’s certainly not ideal. I’ll have to go back and look to see what went wrong.

The second problem is a little bigger. I took the shortcut of not rounding the edges of the board. Looks like that was a mistake as the board doesn’t quite fit in the button:

Bad Fitting BoardIt isn’t entirely clear from that, but the edge of the board are catching on the button, so I can’t press it all the way down. For reference, here’s what the board that came with the button looks like:

Original Easy BoardWith those corners cut off, the board slides all the way down. Oh well–I can still use these boards to make sure the circuit works. I’ve already checked to make sure that the button that came with mounts properly. I’ll test to make sure that the pads I drew for it works properly. And I can see that the mounting holes are in the correct place:

Mounted Easy V1And now I know that when I order version 2 of the boards, they’ll show up FAST! I’m still just amazed that OSH Park got me these boards as fast as they did for under $15 for the three of them!