Artemis hardware ordered!

After looking at the schematic, looking over it again and once more, then at the PCB once more… I decided there could not be too much wrong with the design as-is… So I pulled the trigger and ordered five PCBs including SMT parts!

After Artemis v1.00 was almost sent to production I did make some last minute changes. That resulted in v1.01 of the hardware. Yesterday was a big day: I finally uploaded my design to jlcpcb.com and progressed with the order!

Exciting! The PCB or Artemis v1.01 finally went into production.

No PCA9685 in stock 🙁

Unfortunately the PCA9685 was not in stock at JLCPCB. Finally I decided to order the PCB anyway as I did not want to wait any longer. I have ordered it separately and will solder it manually.

This is what you get from the automated positioning software at JLCPCB: Missing chip 🙁
Not to worry, nothing a soldering iron cannot fix, right!

So I need to get into soldering SMT, which I do not have a lot of history with. Soldering THT parts on the other hand will not be a problem at all. Most of the THT parts I have already sitting here (partly for fitting – things like Coax connectors, USB ports and relays you want to check that they will actually fit) so when the PCB and the PCA9685’s land I should have pretty much all the parts to get this thing going.

Next stop: Coding software

I cannot wait to get my hands on last few hardware things! After that starts working, there is some serious (re)coding to be done compared to what I am using now. Initially most programming will go into the on-board Arduino Mega Pro as I will be changing things like serial communications and also the used address structure to access the actual hardware. Later I’ll dive onto the Python stuff in the Raspberry Pi. Especially for the Arduino part I want to make things a bit more generic, so that I can post the schematic, PCB, gerbers and BoM/POS files as well as the Arduino code to create a full-featured yet generic and easy to use Paludarium / Terrarium / Aquarium controller board (for those that want to tinker that is).

Stay Tuned for the initial board tests!

Artemis v1.01… Still a render but soon to be the real deal! Stay tuned!

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