First prototype for the receiver unit
Been a while since my last post. A lot has been going on with both antennas, electronics and other stuff!
Some days ago I got the big privilege to borrow a CNC router from my friend. It’s an old LPKF91S and I had no software nor cable to the computer. I had no idea of how it worked and what to do to get everything running. Luckily some of my friends had both worked with this exact machine and also with similar models though a bit more advanced. I found a schematic of the cable via the internet and the software part eventually worked out! Now I was ready to mill my first printed circuit board!
The first thing I did was to mill out a sample that came with the software, turned out really bad as I had no idea how to set the height of the drill. Three tries later and I got it working really good. I quickly ran to my main computer and started to put together the last parts needed in one of my schematics in Eagle to start milling. It turned out that I had to do a double sided board and that was at first no problem as I had double sided copper but after the top layer was done milling, I noticed that the software had no idea were to put the bottom layer. My first thought was that I had done something wrong in the Eagle files but it turns out it has something to do with the calibration in the software, I will look into that later.
So, I can print one sided circuit boards.. Let’s make one!
One of my biggest projects is the Diversity Receiver System. This system will decide the best receiver in a 8 receiver system for analog repeaters. The schematic for the part that will be placed in each receiver was almost done, so I added some extra components and then started with the layout of the board. Some hours later and it was finished. Now for some milling!
The milling almost went great the first time, I had to mill some parts of the board a second time to get it perfect. While this board could be better, I am very pleased with the results! The components where quite easy to solder on with flux and a good solder tip. Unfortunately I didn’t have all the components needed for this board to fire it up today but I will take a trip to Elfa on Friday and buy the rest plus some other useful stuff.
I have to give a big THANKS to Mikael Larsmark (SJ2W) who was kind enough to help me with both schematics, layouts and exports for the CNC machine when I had some trouble. He is the god of electronics in my eyes, check his page out for some awesome stuff!
