First SMT board: a 5-day photo adventure!

[bahstrike]

This was my first ever attempt at surface-mount soldering!   

Each post represents 1 day in the process and includes one or more photos (log in to view).

Shown is the progress from Parts to Product.   


DAY 1:
Received parts from Digikey

[bahstrike]

DAY 2:
Printed and aligned the toner-transfer templates (top and bottom).
Also scored and snapped the copper clad.

[bahstrike]

DAY 3:
Did the toner-transfer.
Etched and cleaned the PCB. Later I used some Liquid Tin.
GOT THE FIRST BITS SOLDERED, AND WORKING!  Can you find the trace I accidentally cut through??

[bahstrike]

DAY 4:
This was Saturday.. Being off work and having this grand project to work on left me with NO TIME for taking pictures. Try again tomorrow

[bahstrike]

DAY 5:
Oh yeah baby.  It even works, too.

Third picture shows the aftermath of my difficulty with the CPU chip. It had to be reworked 3 times to get the alignment right  (of course the other chips were easy). Despite being a bit freaked I might have killed the chip with heat, it still works!


This project has been a lot of fun so far but there is still much more to be done!  Just last night I managed to start drawing pixels on the 128x64 LCD screen  (if you can find the block of 2x10 through-holes, that is the connector to LCD).

There are three PIC microcontrollers that need to be filled with code.. this project has now entered MY realm  (muahahah)...

[gogo2520]

Hello
    Looks Nice. What is it ?
                                                   gogo

[bahstrike]

It is a controller to be placed inside a cheapo 1200 watt toaster oven for (future) reflow baking.

Features:
- Thermocouple connector (uses MAX6675 conditioner IC for the accurate temperature reading)
- On-board thermal sensor for monitoring temperature of controller board/area
- MOSFETs to switch both an oven cooling fan and a controller area cooling fan
- Low current output to an optoisolated TRIAC switchboard (the smaller board in the photo of toner transfer) for independent switching of two 120VAC 10A heating elements (top/bottom of oven)
- 20-pin header for connecting to a 128x64 1-bit monochrome LCD (w/ EL backlight). menus and temperature graphs should look nice
- Output to 8ohm speaker for the bleeps and bloops of menu actions and oven events
- Four button inputs for menu navigation (Up/Down, Go, and Cancel)
- 4kb EEPROM for storing new target heating profiles or recording temperature profile for accuracy comparison
- RS-232 (DB9 plug) for connecting to PC software, to transfer settings or temperature profiles
- Three independent controllers (Peripheral control, CPU, Graphics rendering/LCD driver)  split up tasks for smooth operation

I used one of these butane microtorches with heat blower tip for doing the reflow on the whole board

[bahstrike]

Finished the LCD driver!!