Week-04

About the Class

In both the local and global class we were introduced into the theoretical concept and process of PCB milling and soldering. This extended into a hands-on introduction of soldering top-mounted components on PCB boards and handling the Roland SRM-20 mill. More on the details below.

Learning how to solder

After a theoretical introduction, we were given the chance to practice soldering hands-on. For that, we had special text boards with varying practical difficulty throughout board. After the intro, I had the chance to solder a lot more as it turned out: By building a 4-track collaborative loop station in the Fab Academy challenge week, we needed some 30+ connections to be soldered. After a couple of hours, I became more confident and quicker with soldering.

Eduardo explaining the ways to correctly place and solder components on a milled PCB board.

Joaquin practicing on the soldering test board.

The result of practicing on the test board under a magnifying glass. From left to right, the quality of the solder connections can be seen (although still not incredibly great).

Honing my soldering skills during the first Fab Academy Challenge, soldering some 30+ connections.

PCB Design and Milling

As for the custom PCB design and milling, one of the most important concepts is to understand how the drill moves across and through the copper layer on the substrate plate. To prepare high-resolution PNGs or SVGs for milling, we generate Gerber-files via Modsproject, which is a node-based formatting online tool developed and open-sourced by the MIT. In order to generate the files for the specific mills at the FabLab BCN, we need to open a new program (right click on canvas) and select Roland SRM-20 mill > PCB Absolute as settings.

After soldering for a while during the first Fab Academy challenge week, the next step for the loop station should be to design a custom PCB board to reduce the amount of cables and the need for a breadboard. This will allow for a better layout of the components and a smaller physical footprint, since it can be implemented as a shield for the Raspberry Pi 4. I'm currently diving into Fritzing to learn how to design such a board exactly.

The modsproject nodes for processing a PCB design for the Roland SRM-20 mill.

Getting started designing a custom Raspberry Pi shield in Fritzing.

Week 04

Electronics Production

February 22 2022

About the Class

Learning how to solder

PCB Design and Milling

Further Links