Evaluation board with USB

[chrisw957]

For my experiments, I designed a simple pcb with 18F1320 PIC, USB UART, and header for plugging in the RFM12B. It also has an LED and ICSP header. It's an easy way to hook the units up to your laptop, since you get a RS232 debug channel, and the whole thing is powered at 3.3 volts from the USB. Is there any interest in this if I build a few more or turn it into a kit?

You could use one of these connected to your PC to transmit to your robot or whatever has the other end of the link. It fits the hammond 1593K enclosure as well, if you wanted something that looks nice.

The chips are SSOP surface mount packages, but I solder them by hand all the time. Just tack in place, flood all the pins with solder, then wick away the excess.

-chris

[seaton]

G'Day Chris,

Sounds like a great development platform. How about posting some pics so far?

I'm just finishing an Ardiuno based design, see my blog for the board so far. http://blog.everythingrobotics.com/2008/05/05/strobit-board/

Stephen....

[chrisw957]

Here are some photos.. Please excuse the two ugly error corrections...

rfm12bp3.jpg (33.1 KiB) Viewed 7231 times

rfm12bp2.jpg (23.2 KiB) Viewed 7229 times

rfm12bp1.jpg (23.62 KiB) Viewed 7228 times

[chrisw957]

Also, those photos are of the bare boards, without soldermask or silkscreen. I've kinda gotten into a habit of doing the first pass with 3 copies from http://www.barebonespcb.com, testing them, then doing a final version with Gold Phoenix.

[seaton]

Also, those photos are of the bare boards, without soldermask or silkscreen. I've kinda gotten into a habit of doing the first pass with 3 copies from http://www.barebonespcb.com, testing them, then doing a final version with Gold Phoenix.

Looks great!!!! You may want to consider using the smd version and adding an SMA connector so you can put on an external antenna.