Welcome to the Robotics and Automation PCB Challenges Setup Page

What will you need? We're cheap so we use EAGLE. It has the advantages of:

  • It's free for our purposes and easy to learn,
  • Runs on Windows, Linux and Mac.
  • We've made a few of our commonly used parts in our own part library.
  • One more thing, avoid using the autorouter please and use only one layer. (I like the top layer since it's red colored)

Begin

So what do you do?

  1. WARNING: Some of this is missing. If you don't know what to do please ask or make up something you think is right. The goal isn't to see if you can follow my directions, it's to get you to be able to know have to do the basic functions.
  2. Install it set it up.
  3. Do this word problem: You have a Switch, Two Pin Header, A Resistor and an LED. The LED was dim, the resister didn't have anything to slow down and the switch turned off. Draw a schematic that makes them all useful. Assume the 2 pin header is a power source.
  4. Take a screenshot of that awesome series circuit and save it somewhere (perfered to be in the .png format and NO BMP files).
  5. 4 More LED's showed up, put all the LEDs in parallel in the circuit.
  6. Snap that, save it.
  7. Find your way into layout mode.
  8. Drag the parts into the box and arrange the LEDs in a pentagon.
  9. Layout the board so that all the connections in the schematic are made.
  10. Snap a screenshot and save.
  11. You'll probably want help from someone in the trailer unless you're an overachiever since I glazed over all th details.

That's stage 1.

Stage 2:

  1. The Motorola 68S12C has 32 pins. Find a 32 Pin DIP socket. Um, download the library at here and in eagle click library -> use and open that file. It has the S12 I made.
  2. Find a DB9 connector (Serial connector)
  3. Wire Pin 1 to Pin 3. (DIP to Serial)
  4. Wire Pin 2 to Pin 2. (Same idea)
  5. Wire Pin 4 to Pin 5. This is Ground (GND)
  6. Get a switch and wire VCC to Pin 29 of the DIP.
  7. Get a dc jack (DCJ0202) and wire pin 1 to GND and pin 3 to VCC
  8. Take that to lay it out.
  9. Screenshot that and save it.

What does that board (potentially) do? It wired up the serial port and power of the S12 so if it was built, and 5 volts applied, you could program the chip.

Stage 3:

Make a new part.

  • Make a new part with a footprint of 1 inch square. 1 Pin at each corner, .2 inches in from the edge.
  • Label Top Left as VCC, Top Right as GND, Bottom Right as In, Bottom Left as Out.
  • Number them starting from 1 in that order too.
  • This should be a through-hole part. Don't worry about the diameter of the holes. It you want, make them the same diameter that the DIP uses.
  • Steps missing here... (please feel free to ask questions if you have problems)
  • Screen Shot a picture of it's schematic and layout image and save.
  • Put this in your stage 2 circuit. Wire the VCC through the switch like the DIP. Wire the GND to the other GNDs. Wire the In to PIN 15 on the DIP and the Out to Pin 18 on the DIP.
  • Screenshot and save.
  • Place your part in the layout and route.
  • Screenshot and save.

Questions? Email to pcbchallenge@ras.ece.utexas.edu, answers will be posted here. Too daunting? Do it anyways. Ask a question when you're stuck. Oh yeah, email those screenshots to the address as you pass each stage. Zipping them is fine.

Samples and Examples

THESE EXAMPLES ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT YOURS SHOULD LOOK LIKE

They're here to demontrate which parts are used

http://ras.ece.utexas.edu/~derichs/pcb/Stage1/1.PNG

http://ras.ece.utexas.edu/~derichs/pcb/Stage1/2.PNG

http://ras.ece.utexas.edu/~derichs/pcb/Stage1/3.PNG

http://ras.ece.utexas.edu/~derichs/pcb/Stage2/1.PNG

http://ras.ece.utexas.edu/~derichs/pcb/Stage2/2.PNG

http://ras.ece.utexas.edu/~derichs/pcb/Stage2/Hint.PNG

Troubleshooting

  • Resistors are located in the "rcl" which is in Control Panel ---> Libraries ---> rcl (type "r") ---> resistor
  • Question from Matt W.: Oops, answered my own question. However, what do you mean by putting the board(layout)into a pentagon shape? I'm quite sure its not what I put in my Stage 1 Part 3 MattWanninger (hmm, what do I have to do differently here to link to newbotics? MattWanninger) but its all I could think of at the time. Actually, I'm still not satisfied my schematic (Stage 1 Part 2) is correct. Thanks.
  • Thing about the pentagon is, I want the LEDs placed so they form one. The reason is it makes wiring up each LED more "fun." But actually I just realised most people won't encounter the problem I was hoping they would be such a placement.
  • Answer, we need to change InterMapTxt, to enable newbotics, these type of files can be read-only so you might have to send an email to the last person who changed the files