PCB gallery 1 – gekkio.fi
This time I wished to put up some photographs of outdated PCBs I’ve designed within the final
couple of years. All these boards are associated to my Recreation Boy analysis
actions, which began again in 2014. I used to be constructing a Recreation Boy emulator
(Mooneye GB) and located present
documentation concerning the system missing intimately, so I began doing my very own
analysis. With the intention to discover details about the system, I began learning the
{hardware} with the assistance of customized circuit boards. I had little or no expertise
with electronics, having barely handed the essential electronics course on the
college after a number of makes an attempt, however I began from quite simple designs so
deep information was not required at first.
My preliminary selection of PCB design software program was CadSoft Eagle, which had a free
model with some limitations that did not have an effect on my designs at first. Nonetheless,
Sooner or later I used to be beginning to hit each dimension and layer limitations of Eagle,
and had to decide on between paying for Eagle or swap to some various. I
do not keep in mind precisely what the pricing mannequin of Eagle seemed like, however having
assist for a smallish 4-layer design was method too costly, so I began
slowly switching to KiCad. This course of took a
pretty very long time, as a result of the workflow was fairly totally different and KiCad had (and
nonetheless has) some very tough edges. Nonetheless, I can now say the transition was
100% price it, and I am very pleased with KiCad.
Virtually the entire following PCBs have been manufactured by
Elecrow, who I used for a very long time as the first
producer for all my designs. I used to be and nonetheless am very pleased with them, however
sadly my present designs typically require extra superior manufacturing
capabilities (e.g. minimal observe dimension) than what’s supported by Elecrow, so I
have not used their companies just lately.
GB-BRK-M v2.1
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
This board was an up to date model of GB-BRK-M, the breakout cartridge that
began my PCB design journey in 2014. The essential thought is to have a Recreation Boy
cartridge that has no different performance than simply giving me entry to all of the
indicators. This might then be related to some precise circuitry in a breadboard
or different PCBs. The unique v1.0 model had only a PTH pin header and the NPTH
holes utilized by official cartridge shells. It seems utilizing a PTH half is a foul
thought as a result of the pins stand proud of the underside so the PCB will not match properly
in a cartridge shell. I additionally screwed up the NPTH gap sizes and placements, so
the v1.0 board was shortly adopted up by GB-BRK-M v2.0, which switched the pin
header to SMT and had appropriate NPTH holes. Or no less than that is what I
thought…seems I screwed up the NPTH holes once more, in order that they have been mounted in
v2.1, which is the model you’ll be able to see within the photographs.
This v2.1 board additionally has an fascinating manufacturing flaw: I selected white silkscreen (I’ve double-checked the order affirmation e-mail), however Elecrow made a mistake and gave me black silkscreen. Black textual content on crimson background has poor distinction, however this can be a pretty innocent mistake, so I did not even complain about it. ????
GB-BRK-M v3.0
Designed with KiCad, manufactured in 2017 by Elecrow.
One of many first issues I did when studying KiCad was a redesign of the
GB-BRK-M board with it. This time I additionally added LEDs for management indicators, so the
board is sort of much more difficult than the unique Eagle one.
GB-BRK-CART v4.0
Designed with KiCad, manufactured in 2018 by JLCPCB.
After designing GB-BRK-M, I began having second ideas concerning the management
LEDs, as a result of I wished to maintain the board so simple as doable and keep away from
affecting the indicators an excessive amount of with further circuitry. I additionally determined to rename
the board to GB-BRK-CART to emphasise that this can be a cartridge, as a substitute of
utilizing “male/feminine” terminology which isn’t so apparent.
The inexperienced board within the picture above got here from JLCPCB, who I attempted out of
curiosity at this level. With the intention to evaluate producers, I additionally bought some
blue boards from Elecrow utilizing the precisely similar Gerber information. The outcomes have been fascinating, as a result of after listening to many good feedback about JLCPCB, the board was inferior to the Elecrow board.
In these microscope photographs, you’ll be able to clearly see how the JLCPCB board (inexperienced) has decrease silkscreen high quality and soldermask accuracy in comparison with the Elecrow board (blue).
After doing this comparability, I did not really feel very impressed by JLCPCB, so I
continued utilizing Elecrow. Nonetheless, as time handed, my designs began getting
extra difficult so ultimately I needed to cease utilizing Elecrow and make the swap.
GB-BRK-F v1.0
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
This board is the counterpart to GB-BRK-M and permits entry to cartridge slot indicators utilizing a double-row pin header. The cartridge slot footprint was designed for DX 37787 alternative half (now not obtainable), however I forgot concerning the mounting pins on it so it by no means match very effectively on this board. Oops!
GB-BRK-F v2.0
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
After doing GB-BRK-F, I spotted it could be helpful to have two pin headers for straightforward bypass performance whereas nonetheless accessing the indicators, so I designed v2.0. The slot footprint continues to be poor on this one…
GB-INV-DMG v1.0
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
This board was one in all my many experimental designs of a easy twin inverter
board used for DMG biverting.
PICDEV-18F45K50 v1.0
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
This board was an experiment to see if I might design a quite simple growth
board for the PIC18F45K50 MCU, which is without doubt one of the most cost-effective MCUs with built-in
USB assist. It labored, however there have been a number of flaws:
- it makes use of MAX603/604 LDO, which is overkill for this and pretty costly
- it makes use of a USB Micro connector which is worse than USB Mini. On the time I additionally did not have a scorching air station so soldering this connector was just about not possible. I bought it to work, however the soldering high quality was terrible.
Even with these flaws it was a superb experiment, and I nonetheless generally use
PIC18(L)F45K50 for purposes the place USB assist is required.
GB-LIVE32 v1.1
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
That is the second model of GB-LIVE32, a fast growth cartridge for Recreation Boy. Principally it is a Recreation Boy cartridge backed by a 32 kB SRAM, which is seen because the “cartridge ROM” by the Recreation Boy.
I made the horrible mistake of utilizing HASL because the floor end. This can be a unhealthy
thought for Recreation Boy cartridges, as a result of HASL just isn’t actually appropriate for PCB edge
connections. All the boards began having reliability points after possibly 20
insertions, so I discovered from this error and have since then all the time
remembered to make use of ENIG.
GB-BENCH v1.0
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
That is the primary Recreation Boy take a look at bench board I designed. The essential thought is to desolder a Recreation Boy CPU chip from an actual unit, and put it on a board with the required primary circuitry to make it work. Pin headers present entry to all indicators, and a GB-BRK-F board can be utilized to attach an actual cartridge to the system.
This board labored fairly effectively, however merely required an excessive amount of wiring and different
instruments to be helpful in the long run. It was later changed by GB-BENCH-G1,
which has extra performance built-in on the identical board.
GB-BENCH-SRAM-64K-A v1.0
Designed with Eagle, manufactured in 2016 by Elecrow.
That is an addon board for GB-BENCH v1.0 and the unique 8 kB (64 kilobit)
SRAM chips discovered on a DMG Recreation Boy. Two of those can be plugged in to a
GB-BENCH v1.0 board to have a full system with 8 kB video RAM and eight kB work
RAM.
GB-BRK-CPU-G1 v0.1
Designed with KiCad, manufactured in 2018 by Elecrow.
This board will be seen as one of many successors to GB-BENCH v1.0. GB-BENCH-G1
changed it, however generally all you want is a breakout board for the CPU when
simply accessing pins is sufficient.
GB-BRK-CPU-G2 v0.1
Designed with KiCad, manufactured in 2018 by Elecrow.
This is rather like GB-BRK-CPU-G1, however for 2nd technology Recreation Boy CPUs (Recreation Boy
Pocket, Tremendous Recreation Boy 2) which use a special pinout. Once I made this
preliminary v0.1 design, I wasn’t positive about some pins, so the take a look at pins are
labeled T?, and there are another minor variations in comparison with the later
variations.
GB-BRK-CPU-G3 v0.1
Designed with KiCad, manufactured in 2018 by Elecrow.
This breakout board is for third technology Recreation Boy CPUs (Recreation Boy Shade). When
I made the design, I wasn’t positive concerning the pins in any respect so I simply used numeric
labeling.