Hello everyone, my name is Andreas and I together with Albert got the opportunity to work on the B2D2 project as our bachelor's theses. It feels great to do a practical project as a bachelor's thesis.
This week we are going to look at the practical design of one of the many circuit boards needed for the experiment, the motor driver board that can be seen on the topside of the reaction wheel assembly in the last blog post.
The motor driver board transforms the battery voltage to a signal that is able to control the motor speed and direction. The first step in making a circuit board is to first create a schematic over the board and choose what components should be used and make sure they will work together.
The next step is placing all the components on the board. As you can see there are alot of components that need to be placed on a small area. So you have to keep your wits about you and carefully consider the design.
The next step is to “route” the circuit board, layer by layer paint where all the copper connections on the circuit board should be.
When everything is routed we order our boards from a board manufacturer and a couple of days later we have our boards.
And now it is time for soldering. When the components are this small it is easiest to use a microscope when soldering to see what you are working on.
The next step is testing and programming but that will have to wait for a much later blog.
I hope you have enjoyed reading about how we are creating our custom made circuit boards for our experiment.
Make sure to check out our website: www.b2d2.se, our Facebook page, and our instagram accounts. Next stop on the B2D2 train: Recovery Unit
T-12 Months