DIY PCB Fabrication For The Sake Of Science And Education
idbruce
Posts: 6,197
Hello Everyone
This thread is closely related to another thread of mine, which is entitled "ATTN: PCBers SUBJECT: New website and exposure box design for your creative needs", which can be found here : http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?135950-ATTN-PCBers-SUBJECT-New-website-and-exposure-box-design-for-your-creative-needs. However, this thread is more of a general nature, with the overall purpose of encouragement and to give a little guidance. For a more in depth discussion, please visit my other thread.
As many of you know, I have a very strong interest in stepper motors and stepper drivers. In fact, this very morning, I had a brief discussion with another forum member about a couple of stepper driver IC chips, the L6208 and the L6470 from STMicroelectronics. I have many stepper driver ICs laying around, and for the longest time, I have been wanting to create some drivers from the L6208 IC, but I always postpone it due to a lack of time. The forum member with whom I had a discussion this morning, well he is a firm believer of the L6470 IC, and he suggested that I experiment with this chip instead. Anyhow, the main reason I am on this adventure at this point is to provide some real PCB examples for the other thread above. At first I complained to the other member that I already have most of the circuitry designed for the L6208 IC, and I would probably stick with that for now, just to save some time. After pondering it for a while and struggling with my current PCB design, I remembered a very handy resource, which is the manufacturer. There are many nice IC manufacturers out there, but I am particularly fond of STMicroelectronics, because they have some very nice products, they will provide you with several samples at no cost, and they document their products very well. In addition to their outstanding documentation, many times they will create an evaluation board around particular products to show off its features and how to use it, with the intent to make future sales. These evaluation boards are important to us in an education sense, and most importantly, it gives us a working design to start from. Just to give you an example, I made an immediate about face, and I am going to create some PCB samples from the L6470 IC that was suggested to me. You are probably thinking this will take him forever. Ahhh, but this is not true, thanks to STMicroelectronics. About a half hour ago, I ordered three L6470 IC samples, and those should be arriving in a couple days, but that is not the point, the point is to make several quick PCBs so that I can experiment with these samples when they arrive. You are still thinking it is impossible to create several PCBs for the arriaval of the samples. It just so happens that STMicroelectronics also provides outstanding documentation for their evaluation boards, which in many cases includes the gerber files for the PCBs. I can't say this is true for all of their evaluation boards, but it is true for the EVAL6470H and the EVAL6208N, which happen to contain two of the ICs that I want to experiment with.
Just a handy little tip for those that want to experiment a little. If stepper drivers do not interest you, there are plenty of other evaluation boards available that can be controlled with the Propeller or a BASIC Stamp. Simply perform a search at Mouser or your favorite supplier with either the phrase "EVAL" or "evaluation".
Don't just stand there, do something, anything, even if it is incorrect.
Bruce
This thread is closely related to another thread of mine, which is entitled "ATTN: PCBers SUBJECT: New website and exposure box design for your creative needs", which can be found here : http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?135950-ATTN-PCBers-SUBJECT-New-website-and-exposure-box-design-for-your-creative-needs. However, this thread is more of a general nature, with the overall purpose of encouragement and to give a little guidance. For a more in depth discussion, please visit my other thread.
As many of you know, I have a very strong interest in stepper motors and stepper drivers. In fact, this very morning, I had a brief discussion with another forum member about a couple of stepper driver IC chips, the L6208 and the L6470 from STMicroelectronics. I have many stepper driver ICs laying around, and for the longest time, I have been wanting to create some drivers from the L6208 IC, but I always postpone it due to a lack of time. The forum member with whom I had a discussion this morning, well he is a firm believer of the L6470 IC, and he suggested that I experiment with this chip instead. Anyhow, the main reason I am on this adventure at this point is to provide some real PCB examples for the other thread above. At first I complained to the other member that I already have most of the circuitry designed for the L6208 IC, and I would probably stick with that for now, just to save some time. After pondering it for a while and struggling with my current PCB design, I remembered a very handy resource, which is the manufacturer. There are many nice IC manufacturers out there, but I am particularly fond of STMicroelectronics, because they have some very nice products, they will provide you with several samples at no cost, and they document their products very well. In addition to their outstanding documentation, many times they will create an evaluation board around particular products to show off its features and how to use it, with the intent to make future sales. These evaluation boards are important to us in an education sense, and most importantly, it gives us a working design to start from. Just to give you an example, I made an immediate about face, and I am going to create some PCB samples from the L6470 IC that was suggested to me. You are probably thinking this will take him forever. Ahhh, but this is not true, thanks to STMicroelectronics. About a half hour ago, I ordered three L6470 IC samples, and those should be arriving in a couple days, but that is not the point, the point is to make several quick PCBs so that I can experiment with these samples when they arrive. You are still thinking it is impossible to create several PCBs for the arriaval of the samples. It just so happens that STMicroelectronics also provides outstanding documentation for their evaluation boards, which in many cases includes the gerber files for the PCBs. I can't say this is true for all of their evaluation boards, but it is true for the EVAL6470H and the EVAL6208N, which happen to contain two of the ICs that I want to experiment with.
- For complete documentation pertaining to the EVAL6470H go here: http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/253212.jsp
- For complete documentation pertaining to the EVAL6208N go here: http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/152186.jsp
- For a Windows version of Gerbv, go here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gerbv/
Just a handy little tip for those that want to experiment a little. If stepper drivers do not interest you, there are plenty of other evaluation boards available that can be controlled with the Propeller or a BASIC Stamp. Simply perform a search at Mouser or your favorite supplier with either the phrase "EVAL" or "evaluation".
Don't just stand there, do something, anything, even if it is incorrect.
Bruce
Comments
Well, it appears as though I was WRONG in this instance
And I should have mentioned this a little sooner, so please forgive me
The EVAL6470H is a multi-layer board, so this type of board is really not for the Do It Yourselfers, so perhaps it would take me forever
However, the EVAL6208N strictly consists of a top and bottom layer, which can easily be made at home. I suppose I will now be making samples of the EVAL6208N instead of the EVAL6470H.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Okay the new layer has been inserted into the project and aligned with the other layers. So now it will be possible to mount this future board with four screws.
After weighing my options and the cost of materials, I have decided to only make one of these boards for testing out the driver IC chip. If it performs reasonably well, I will probably finish designing my own circuit board and make those instead.
Hopefully I will be exposing and etching this board sometime this evening or early tomorrow morning.
Bruce