48 hours with KiCAD has been a big education. When I say 48h, I don't mean two days. I stayed up crazy late in a very obsessive way. Making PCB designs look nice feels good in the same way that straightening a painting feels nice. It's definitely dangerous for people with a certain kind of OCD.

KiCAD is quite non-intuitive, but the community is very helpful and there are a lot of tutorials. In a way it feels a lot like a natural next step from FACTORIO, TIS-100, and other assembly/puzzle games.

I like to tell the Reddit FACTORIO people this is my first Inserter. One user asked what difficulty I was playing on, to which I said I got the mod from /r/outside.

This was my first attempt at a PCB. I've always been scared of electrical engineering. When I get it right I feel like I'm painting by numbers and crossing my fingers.

You may be looking at this and wondering why the capacitors aren't under the A4988 shields like in 3D printer shields. I've used only through-hole components so that I can work with spare junk I have in my parts drawers. I don't have time to mask, place, reflow, etc. A good Kickstarter would fund a redesign for mass production.

I've tried top plan ahead by adding ESD protection for an RX/TX line that could go through an Automatic Tool Changer (ATC). The 5v* and 12v* pins are for turning on relays that will power whatever tool is picked up. The relays would be off when the tool is (dis)connecting. A great suggestion I heard was to set the RX/TX lines as inputs and turn on the internal resistors, which should also help protect the MEGA on (dis)connect.

The next step is to get an expert to looks over, then send it somewhere like OSHPark. In the meantime I will continue working on the 3D simulation software and The ATC's physical design. Spring loaded contacts! Mechanical lock! Exciting stuff.

If you can see anything I did funny, shout it out.

It would mean a lot to me if you could tell your friends about my main website, Marginally Clever Robots. Business has been really slow and I'm struggling to stay afloat, even though a new Makelangelo robot is turned at least once a day.