Had an almost complete board until I realized that USB wouldn't have worked because it didn't have an uninteruppted ground plane. Same goes for CAN. Also need to redo the layout for the stepper motor so that traces are short as possible.
by
rich27
3 years 1 month
Decided to re-do the layout and routing again in order to untangle the ratsnest around the MCU more. Hopefully this endevor will reduce the number of traces needed. I also might change the PCB stack up and create a separate ground plane for the stepper motor driver.
by
rich27
3 years 1 month
Decided to try a new approach with the layout and routing. So far I think its working but I'll have to wait and see tomorrow. Still not sure if I need to drop those resistors on the enable pins. Worst case I can bridge them when the board comes out. Fingers crossed!!
by
rich27
3 years 1 month
Finished the initial layout of the board. Still need to rearrange some components to fit the M.2 card on the board. I think I picked the wrong connector for the M.2 card. Need to go back and fix that. Also, the enable pins I think have too many resistors. I might drop the pull down resistors on the enable pins for the stepper motor. Also, I upgraded to Kicad 6 as I needed the latest version to view the PCB file and we can set custom design rules for future PCBs.
by
rich27
3 years 1 month