Week 11

For this entry, I will show the drilling part.

- Drill PCB after alcohol washing.

- the drill bit that are using 0.8 mm, 1.0 mm and 1.2 mm.

- Drill size is important to make correct holes for the correct electronic components. 

Since, Im not in expert of drilling the PCB board, I did ask my friend to help me for this. :)

The circuit is ready to be constructed with the component.

Week 10 Part 2

Etching Process based on PCB layout

In this entry, I will explain that there are few steps for the PCB fabrication.


1. PCB Cutting
       - cut photo PCB size according to the film size

PCB layout design

2. PCB Photo Etching
       - Expose the photo PCB in photo etching kit for 8-10 minutes.
       - the board needs to be exposed to ultra-violet light, using UV exposure.
       - UV exposure units can easily be made using standard fluorescent lamp ballasts and UV tubes.

3. PCB Developing
       - wash the PCB using PCB developer (white powder) for 2 minutes.

4. Acid Etching
      - etching is a process that removes materials from such as unwanted copper from the PCB surface to achieve circuit design requirements. The etching process used in this project is called chemical etch or pattern etch.

      - Once the image printed on PCB copper board, there is a iron(I III) chloride solution and ready to the etching. 

      -  the etching process takes around 30 minutes.

5. Thinner Washing

          - this is a process to remove the black ink on the PCB board. The black ink has to remove in order to solder the components. The green coating on PCB can be removed by alcoholic solution and leaving only the PCB trace. After remove the black ink, the PCB is then send for cleaning using normal water. 

After the etching process is done

For the next entry, I will explain show the drilling process.

      

Week 10

Before do the project on PIC, we have to construct the circuit diagram. and I'm using the Proteus software to construct. 

So, here is the final circuit diagram.

Circuit Diagram

The figure below shows the circuit diagram based from the Proteus software. I have to used the Proteus software from my friend's laptop since I've problem for the software in my laptop. 

After the circuit diagram is success, the PCW C-Compiler is used to edit and compile the C-language program that I used.

By using the PICKIT2 Downloader Software, the program will download to PIC. This software comes with Microchip USB PIC Programmer. This Software is used to read and write the HEX from PICKIT2 into PIC16F877 microcontroler. Below shows PICKit2 software: 

Software is used to read and write into PIC16F877 microcontroller

Next, the figure below shows the command of program is burning.

Week 9

The PCB Fabrication

Once the PCB layout has been correctly design, it is now prints out the layout on the A4 size transparent OHP paper. 

There are two types of printers are allowed to print the PCB layout. One is laser printer and the other is carbon type of printer such as Photostat machine. Inkjet and dot matrix type of printer will not work. 

The tools required for etching:

1. Fluorescent light
2. UV PCB
3. Marker Pen
4. OHP transparent paper
5. Blade
6. Iron (III) chloride acid
7. Clean water
8. Thinner
9. Plastic container
10. laser printer
11. PCB cutter and trimmer
12. Soldering gun
13. Soldering lead

Week 8

Design the PCB layout

I need to test the modules with breadboard to make sure the circuit is functioning well. 

After that, PCB drawing is designed using Protel DXP 2005. By using this Protel DXP 2005 software, it will display the component, display component and layout, and display the layout only. 

PIC 16F877A microcontroller 

Display Components and Layout

Display Components only

Display Layout only