Last weekend I assembled a few breakout boards for things I’m going to need to be able to prototype my Reflow Oven project.  Namely, I needed a DB9 RS232 breakout board, a DIN-5 breakout board, and a 5v power supply.  Schematics and board layouts (fixed versions!) can be found at my GoogleCode repository.

When you buy a brand new, blank ATmega328p, it comes with a set of fuses (basically hardware settings) which give it maximum reliability, but they aren’t the default that is required for the chip to work with the Arduino IDE and libraries.  In order to burn the correct fuses onto it, run the following command (this assumes that you’re using Arduino-as-ISP on COM4);

Now that I’ve got the MCE Remote all built and in service (works quite nicely!), I need a new project.  I’m interested in getting involved in surface mount devices.  The reason for this is threefold - there are certain devices that aren’t available in through-hole packages, when using SMT you can typically make a board a lot smaller, and lastly individual SMT components not on breakout boards are typically a LOT cheaper than the already-soldered part.

In my last post about the MCE Remote relay I was working on, I prototyped up the circuit and finalized the schematic in Eagle.  After doing that, I worked on a PCB layout ( all related file can be found here ).  It was a bit of a trick getting a suitable layout sorted out in Eagle, but I got it done.  From there, I was able to generate transfers for the top layer (silkscreen), and the bottom layer (etch).  They appear below;

Well, it’s done!  Last night I completed the last of the wiring, spun up all the motors, ran through the pre-flight checklists, and this morning I set the quad going in the carport.  It took off, no major issues.  Leans to the right, but I think that’s because of the angle of the carport’s concrete.  I only brought it about a foot off the ground 🙂

Did some more optimizations on my Microserver to improve performance and reduce the write I/O going to the USB flash.