Finally back in the game. A solid draft of the documentation finally made its way to the ten of us using these PCBs so some of us are getting a head start while the manual is being finalized.This build approach is different since one drops each component in by type first. I'll need to do testing later because the boards are really only populated fully in the in the end rather than being able to test sections incrementally. This concerns me a little bit because it may complicate troubleshooting. The documentation may eventually include test procedures in phases but we'll see.
Note that my own sourced parts, namely the resistors, are also 1/4W instead of 1/8W. I purchased all my parts before getting the mod kit. I hope I don't kick myself later for replacing them with the smaller ones. It appears I have clearance in the I/O but it's also quite obvious that the through holes and spacing on the PCB were design for 1/8W.
3 comments:
The board-at-once approach is much better. Not only is it significantly faster, but it is much harder to make an error.
You only make the choice of which component to stuff once per type/value, then you keep stuffing until you are done. If you are short or long in that component you can double check each one.
I found a number of errors which I had made while following the adafruit document when I switched to to the x0xi0 doc.
How goes your build? I'm on the final assembly now.
My build is going poorly! I shelved it after numerous calibration attempts. I'm only just picking up the pieces now and am going over it again to wrap it up.
The document is also now in it's 4th revision which should prove valuable.
I agree that the board-at-once approach could make sense but in this context I would make the case that it's worth doing incremental builds. The documentation is STILL somewhat poor and in development. Once you solder the top I/O into place, the last thing you want to do is desolder it because of some error. There are a LOT of jumper pins holding that in place.
Well actually, to clarify: poor documentation is incorrect. It's the number of custom PCB users that is small so there's very little discussion in that group to troubleshoot problems. I'm glad I'm getting back into it after this many revisions because I quickly picked off certain problems that must have had an effect on my earlier build.
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