PCB Fabrication

Ultimately MeowCAD is meant to create boards. The real test is whether you can go from idea to full board.

I've created two functioning boards with MeowCAD. Both have been designed completely in MeowCAD, schematics and PCBs, sent to OSHPark for creation and reflowed at home with my own reflow oven (a converted convection toaster oven). You can read a bit about it in a blog post I did.

Both circuits are very simple and are more of a 'proof of concept' than anything else. Remember, I'm still learning electronics. I built MeowCAD to help me with my electronics education. Both circuits were my first time designing and reflowing surface mount components (using 1208 and 0603 parts).

8-Bit Heart

The first board I successfully created through MeowCAD was the '8-Bit Heart'. Below is the board in action. The board itself is about 2 inches square with an ATMega328 directly driving a 4x4 1208 (red) LED matrix. The battery is a CR2032 pill battery (the kind you find in watches sometimes). One of the reasons I wanted AdaFruit and Dangerous Prototypes library import was because they both had a nice CR2032 surface mount holder that I wanted to use that wasn't available through the standard KiCAD libraries.

The board scrolls a message across the LED display in 'ticker tape' fashion. Below is a video of it in action:

Source is available on my GitHub page.

h8ARt

The second board was a smaller one. I originally wanted to create an earring but I think the board, while small, is still too large.

The 'h8ARt' board uses an attiny13 driving a 3x3 0603 (red) LED matrix via Charlieplexing. The battery is mounted on the back and is a CR1220. It also displays a message in 'ticker tape' style though the font is extremely hard to read as 3x3 is not that legible. I originally had the source in C but quickly ran into the 1k memory limit of the attiny13 and had to go to assembly to fit all the functionality I wanted in it. Below is a video of it in action.

Source is also available on my GitHub page.

Success!

The circuits are simple but I'm very happy with how they turned out. MeowCAD can be used to actually fabricate boards!