The PCB

Hey All,

As Liam has said, I have spent a bunch of time working on the PCB. Shortly after starting version 1, I realised that the PIC 32 was not only overkill, but programming it, and the PCB were going to be over my head. So I convinced Liam to let us use a PIC18F series microcontroller instead.



On this board, I've made connections for a large number of peripherals. We have an LCD, the Digi Xstream module, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, GPS, RPM Sensor, Sonar Range Finder, 5 servo ports, and 1 ESC port. There are 4 status LEDs, two for the radio module, and two for the MCU. I figure I can program what I want the two MCU ones to do, but at this stage it will show boot, all okay, and error.

The power supply features two linear regulators from microchip, one for 1.5A @5v, and one for 0.5A @ 3.3v.

The main controller is the PIC18F46J11, and the fail safe is the PIC18F26J11 (Which I am certain the package is modeled wrong, so I plan to check that one out...)

I'm sure someone with more experience would have made a nicer and more compact layout, but I am new to all of this :-). This is the most complex board I have ever routed, and it was great to be able to make it two layer. Previously, I have been able to make two layer boards, but all of the via had to have a wire soldered to both sides, and there was no plated through holes.


Until next time...

Dan

Control Board PCB Circuit

Not really my place to post this up, but since its been a while since the last post, something needs to be put up!

Designed by Dan over the last week, this is the Rev2 board and it doesn't feature a PIC32, but a MCU from the PIC18F family.  It will be a double sided PCB possibly made at Seeed studio and will have a few made.  From memory 10 boards at $4USD per board, exc freight to New Zealand.  I will leave Dan to explain the features of his exciting new board :P

What have I been doing?  Not much to show.  Exams have just finished, and have been quite busy sorting out other stuff.  Slow progress is being made on the front of writing a funding proposal, and we have had a private sponsor donate a good sum of money to get us started, you know who you are, thank you very much!

After modification after modification, we have finally agreed on the airframe and what sensors etc we are going to be using.  The airframe is a URSUS made by a Polish company, linky, the website, however, is in Polish (funnily enough) so scroll down a bit and on the right bar should be a google translate box.

No I didn't choose it because of the sexy colour scheme ;)

Two 5000mAh batteries should be enough to keep this bird in the air for a good half hour to an hour at a time.  A spare 2200mAh battery will power the electronics and be a backup for the servos(citation needed).

Shucks - I just realised something we didn't have on the circuit.  Will message Dan about that now..

Stay tuned!!!

Liam