rich27 / UtProSat Payload board - History

Board is done! Well, kind of. I still have to go through the DRC report to make sure I didn't miss anything. At the moment, everything is connected.

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.

Almost done with the board. Have to resolve USB routing and CAN. Thinking of removing the buffer circuit and making that off board or just add test points to everything.

I'm so close to finishing this board. I'll definitly have a prototype by Thursday/Friday. Still have to figure out USB and CAN diff pairs for the MCU and then power planes.

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.

Relayedout the whole board and got a layout im happy with and began the routing process. I had to change the diodes since they didn't have a high enough current rating to handle the stepper motor. I still have a couple more signal traces to route and then I can put in the powerplanes.

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!!

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.