New Project Electronics

Hello,
I am new to the forum and have been reading all I can for about a month now. I am in the planning stages of my build and have a few questions. I apologize for my lack of knowledge but hope these questions are somewhat simple.

First, I am planning on building a motion simulator after the joyrider design powering the movement with wiper motors. I Have limit electronics experience but do not feel I would have any problem with the build portion of the simulator. I have done several other DIY projects with great success and a computer engineer by trade. My problem is that I don’t think I could make the electronics even following the excellent information provided by Tronicgr.

Am I to understand correctly that I will need to build an AVR Motion Controller, A Duel Mosfet HBridge, and a Servo-Motor-Control? If that is correct can you buy these things pre-made?

I think the electronics are going to kill my dream but hope there is an alternative solution for us less experienced in this area. Thank you in advance for your time and excellent site to help us move our projects along.

im in exactly the same position as you, i know absolutely nothing, but am decent enough with a soldering iron.
im sure its doable if broken down into small chunks.
as i may be getting quite a bit of free time quite soon, if any mentor is prepared to help us know nothings about electrons sort, we could start an idiots guide to building control electronics thread perhaps?

There is way too much information to shrink into a thread. Google is your best friend, everything you can think of and possible, has been done before.
www.allaboutcircuits.com is an excellent source of electronics basics.

I will answer specific questions, and by that I don't mean Where do I start? There is already a lot posted here, the rest is on other sites.

Thank you for your posts. I have Googled as much as I think I can and have read this site everyday to get an idea of what to do to get rolling. I have decided to “Go For It” and will post progress here. I have watched others and it seems that once you get going it may make more sense to place it in the Wiki. I will post both my successes and failures to try to help others. I will work up my plan and post as soon as I have more information on what I buy, What I have problems getting, and what I pull my hair out for : . Wish Me Luck……..

My best advice for those who don't have any electronics experience is to look for off-the-shelf components. Building your own without any electronics knowledge is just not going to happen. Knowing how to solder and make a PCB doesn't really matter. Even with detailed plans and instructions there are a lot of people having issues with the AMC and the DSMHb for various reasons.

That was my first question. What Off-The-Shelf solutions are available for the AVR Motion Controller, Duel Mosfet HBridge, and a Servo-Motor-Control. If I can buy them then by all means I think that would be best. I need to control 2 wiper motors for a joyrider type sim what should I buy to control them through X-Sim?

There are a lot of different things out there, some might work better for your needs and some might not. I cannot refer you to any specific ones because I haven't looked into them.

You need a DC motor driver (H-Bridge) to make the motors move, a lot of flexibility here.

Controlling the bridge is the most critical part, PID controllers are most widely used to position accurately. This controller needs to take position feedback from the simulator, as well as X-Sim, then drive the DC motors accordingly so both of these positions match.

Check out pololu.com and the Motion Control Modules. There are a couple options for DC motor drivers, but the PID control and interface with X-Sim is going to be harder to find. They also have RC servo controllers if you need something like that.

Thank you. I will look over the pololu.com site as I have been there before after reading these forums. I will see if I can work out the needs list and may be a good start. Thanks again for you responses.

Well, This weekend I has my first success / Failure. I created my board layouts on a laser printer and tried to transfer the layout. The etchant worked well but a few traces are broken (open) on the first attempt.



What did I do wrong? not enough heat, did not press hard enough, not leave it in water long enough and pulled toner off? Almost all the fine traces turned out good but the thick ones is where my problem was. Can I fix this with solder traces or for fine lines, a conductive pen? I am planning to try again if either of these options are bad ideas.

On 2nd try I got this



Then Finally I got this ready to etch on the 3rd try. It looks like there is a special touch to making these things... :clap:



More to come as progress happens.

I haven't done the toner method to make PCB's so I don't know what went wrong.

As a general rule, you want your black as dark as you can when printing, so more toner powder gets on the board. More heat can help the toner stick to copper, which of course needs to be clean to begin with.

Always inspect before etching! The image will only be worse after etching, so you want to have as good as possible. You can touch up the image with a permanent marker.

You might also want to cover up as much copper as you can to save on ferric chloride and speed up the process.

Finally it took 3 tries but I think I have an etched board. I noticed that one circle (bottom left) and the S in simulator (top left) are not so good. As well a small notch on the one trace (top right) but I have tested all traces with a meter and they all seem ok. Would this be considered ready to drill? If the answer is yes then I may hang it on my fridge like a gold star from school. Now, to the drilling.

As long as all the connections are good you are ok.

Make sure you remove copper from between the thick traces, unless you want some fireworks.

Yes, I saw those already and am going to use a magnifying glass and scalpel to remove anything there. I did test across those and did not get anything but will have a look see just to be sure. Thanks for the heads up. Pricing out components now.... Let’s see what this baby will cost me

Hello,

As I start my build of the boards I came across this question. If I am using the Dual Mosfet H-bridge by Tronicgr do I need to make the AVR Motion Controller v1.5 or the AVR Motion Controller v1.5b. The reason I ask is that the “B” version seems to simply have the additional “PWM to simple hbridge” circuitry and if I am not using RN-VN2 Controllers or Dual VNH3SP30 Motor Driver Carrier and only need 2 motor controlled I should build the AVR Motion Controller v1.5. Is that correct? Does the AVR Motion Controller v1.5b have any other differences that would get me in trouble later being I selected to use the older version?

An Update:
I am not using an iron anymore as there were too many variables and getting constant results was almost impossible with my paper, available clad board and my patience. I have now switched to a laminator. Since I live in the US I purchased the laminator at Wal-Mart for less than $30.00. A great price for the output I am getting. With my paper selection Staples brand Color Laser Photo Supreme Gloss Paper (item #651611) and Laminator (Scotch TL901) The instruction are as follows.

1. Use ScotchBrite pad and clean board
2. Use Acetone to clean particles off board (Clean twice with clean paper towel each time)
3. Place laser diagram (Face Down) on prepared board
4. Use masking tape to hold printed diagram down on top and bottom (Very little piece of tape)
5. Place board with printed paper on top and run through laminator
6. Place board with printed paper on top and run through again this time rotate 180 degrees to feed opposite end first
7. Repeat step 6 four (3) more times. Keep rotating 180 degrees each time.
8. Flip board over and place in laminator with printed paper on the bottom.
9. Place board with printed paper on bottom and run through again this time rotate 180 degrees to feed opposite end first
10. Repeat step 9 four (3) more times. Keep rotating 180 degrees each time.
11. Flip board over and place in laminator with printed paper on top again.
12. Place board with printed paper on top and run through again this time rotate 180 degrees to feed opposite end first
13. Repeat step 12 three (3) more times. Keep rotating 180 degrees each time.
14. Place board in bowl of cold water for 10 minutes
15. SLOWLY pull first layer of paper off board
16. Place back in water and massage / rub off layers with your fingers (you can use a soft tooth brush but I use it lightly to get off last layers)
17. Dry and Inspect board for complete transfer with no open traces or breaks of any kind.
18. If the transfer does not look good clean board with Lacquer Thinner and / or Acetone and repeat entire process.
19. NEXT STEP OS NON REVERSABLE so please carefully inspect your board again.
20. Use your favorite etchant to etch your board…..

Although these steps work for me and may seem overkill running 15 times through laminator, it works for me and I cannot be held accountable for any outcome following this process.

With the new laminated setup here is board #2 completed on the first try . I was concerned as my board was almost not big enough but seems to be fine with trace very close to the edge (Not Over).

OK, Now I am confident with board creation can anyone tell me where in the US can I buy all the components needed for the H-Bridge and AVR. I have looked around but it seems I have to buy some parts at one place and order from others and may have to use several different vendors. Is there a one stop shop to get what I need?

I am almost complete with my order of parts needed to complete the two boards. I will post them here with websites to get all parts after I have confirmed that I did get the right components. This should help people trying to find components.

So, I finally broke down and ordered my parts for the electronics. I am posting them here for 2 reasons.

1. Did I order the right components? If someone would like to waste time and review the attached file it would be much appreciated. Either way I am stuck with them at this point and hope they all work together.

2. The companies I dealt with seemed to have all the parts and I wanted to let others know where they could get them if located in the US. Actually anywhere as these were web orders and I am sure they ship outside the US.

https://www.digikey.com/ had most parts but the resistors were not available there. Very helpful customer service.

http://www.mouser.com/Home.aspx had the resistors but not a lot of the other parts. Awesome customer service and a joy to deal with.

Between these two places I was able to get what I needed to complete the build (I Think).

Hope this helps others out as I found it difficult to find all the parts from one vendor but only dealing with two vendors was not bad at all.

**WARNING** DO NOT order from this document without checking for correct parts and quantities. **WARNING**

You should have posted before you ordered...

There is absolutely no way digikey did not have resistors and 5V regulators. They stock hundreds of thousands DIFFERENT components and they don't have simple through hole resistors? Come on..

Everything seems to be alright, although you could have saved a lot of money, at least $50.

-You don't need the Atmega644, and crystals above 18.432MHz.
-The LCD modules go for about $8 on ebay, I don't know what type is the basic stamp module, but the cheapest compatible 16x2 character module will work.
-CHOKE RF CONFORMAL COATED 10UH for $2.2 is going to be very special inductor designed for RF and very high frequencies. All you need is a generic 10% 10uH inductor that costs about 10c.
-SIP HEADER 64 POS STRAIGHT PCB - On ebay you can get 20rows of 40pins + 10rows of 40pin sockets for $10, and not 1row of 64.
-Rest of the polarized connectors are way too expensive to buy from them too.. they could be substituted for cheaper ones from other sellers.