In this week, we learned about the production of circuit boards. Specifically, we’ve been learning about designing and milling our own boards with a view to producing one at the end of the task.

For the task this week we were asked to stuff a FabTinyISP. An ISP is an ‘in-system programing’ unit that is used as a pathway to load new information onto a circuit board. The purpose of creating an ISP is to have our own hardware that would be able to program future circuit boards.

Prior to us stuffing the boards, Andrew gave us an introduction to the basics of current and orientation of the components. He explained that current runs “alphabetically”; Anode to cathode. This gave me enough context to confidently begin stuffing the ISP board.

To begin the process, Andrew gave us all a milled board, list of components and a circuit board diagram to follow. With this information, I began to stuff the board, using the diagram as a guide to follow.

Above is the list of components given to us by Andrew

Above is the circuit diagram and schematic.

Using the provided information I was able to successfully stuff the ISP board. As I made my way through the board, I made sure to solder the components from the inside to the outside of the board. This made the process much easier to navigate around in order to accurately place each small component. When stuffing the board, I was very careful to follow the diagram to the best of my ability. The only issue I had was when I accidentally soldered a 1K ohm resistor in the place of a 499 OHM resistor. In order to rectify this issue, I applied a small amount of heat to the area to loosen the solder and allow me to easily remove the component without damaging it. Once I had fixed this issue, I continued to stuff the board with no further problems.

Above is a gif that shows the process of soldering each component to the board (you may need to click on the image to load the gif file).

To finish off the task, I soldered the bridge on the board. This bridge gives a computer access to the board in order to program the ISP. The bridge is shown in the picture below:

I am pleased with the outcome of this exercise as I feel that I now have a much better understanding of the board stuffing process as well as the practical understanding of how a circuit board flows current through each component.

The next part of the process is to load on the code to the board in order for it to function as a FabTinyISP. Once this has been done, I will be able to remove the solder bridge to ensure that no other data can be loaded onto the board.