It began with a bit of planning on my side(thank you!), wherein I fixed this weekend for this activity, after a lot of procrastination. So Saturday morning, me n Tushar swooshed to Lamington Road- for those who do not know, it is THE place in Mumbai where all kinds of Electronics components reside. Tushar was walking through the lanes there, as if he owns them-after all, he knows most of the shops there, knows where you will find a particular component cheap. He has been going there regularly for the last 5 years. So basically I was lucky. Unfortunately we landed when the shop shutters were still sleeping. These guys are damn lazy. Always remember, if you want to go to Lamington road, be there after 11 am. Sunday closed. First Lesson for the weekend learnt.
You will find that a layout is already available for the circuit on the webpage that i referred to. But I did not want to copy it. So I made my own layout in Eagle along the week and made a list of components to be bought. I bought the components and the PCB fabrication materials required(Ferrous chloride, copper cladded PCB, drill and drill bits). We planned on working on it on Sunday morning, since we had to report to office and also had planned a visit to Elecrama2010. The Elecrama thing did not prove to be very useful, since we reached there when most of the stalls were winding up.
Come Sunday, we start off by printing the layout on a paper and then ironing it out on the PCB. After 4 unsuccessful trials, we learnt that a glossy paper(like most magazines have) is better for taking a print. a laser printer is mandatory. After ironing it out on the PCB, we dipped it in the ferrous chloride solution-all thanks to Tushar who has performed this process numerous times. After minute observation learnt that few tracks had merged, so had to separate them out using a blade. Drilled holes into the PCB(in the process, broke two drill bits), mounted the components and we were ready to go. But it did not work at first go. Again minute observation showed that a track was open. Bridged the track and hurrah....the programmer was born..........I have not grossed over the process details. You will find many Youtube videos on DIY PCB fabrication. All this made us again lose out on the last day of Elecrama2010, since we reached there an hour before the thing started closing. But all in all, it was a satisfying weekend for me....hope to have many such ahead.....Ohh..btw forgot to tell you that the first four unsuccessful printing trials made us think that perhaps my layout was faulty, and we reverted back to the one available on the webpage. So the one working now does not have the artwork done by me. But I am sure my design would also work. I will have that one printed too in the near future....and now heading for the week ahead.....
