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Testing the Module
04/14/2018 at 07:54 • 0 commentsThe module was tested in a very noisy environment - a small workshop with a 90 dB petrol engine running inside. The beepers were far louder than the engine and their rated power of 97 dB seemed accurate. The banks of LEDs were literally dazzling and the whole thing soon became extremely annoying!!
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PCBs Arrived and Populated
04/13/2018 at 07:11 • 0 commentsThe PCBs arrived super quickly from https://jlcpcb.com/ .... Cost $2.5 plus postage and are super good quality - no problems with silkscreen as with other suppliers.
The PCBs are reversible, with LEDs on one side and sounders on the other, the idea being to join them together as shown above. The lower PCB has 4 sounders on the RHS and the 10 pin driver chips are hidden on the other side.
Whilst the LEDs could be hand soldered fairly easily with a hot air gun, the sounder casings tended to melt so a reflux oven would have been more appropriate although I ended up using solder paste and soldering iron.
A bit of trial and error selecting the correct resistors for the banks of LEDs. Red and green required 100 ohms and the others about 40 ohms (see instructions section).
The whole PCB works really well and nothing gets too hot and the LED banks are incredibly bright! Watch this space for a video update with the device on an actual machine - the WEEDINATOR - where the sounders need to compete with the noise of a 90 dB petrol motor.
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PCB manufacture
04/03/2018 at 16:16 • 0 commentsGerber files sent to https://jlcpcb.com .... waiting patiently for boards to come back to produce some serious light and noise!