@crkalapat

After a (very tragic) discovery that basically nobody online sells 2x9 or 2x10 JST connectors, I updated my schematic to use 2 1x10 or 1x9 JST XH connectors for the connections to the OLED display and RPI Zero 2W. I found footprints for all my symbols, finished the schematic, and started the PCB layout process. Turns out that JST sockets are pretty big (relatively speaking). I did some layout work, and now I have a rough sense of where everything will go (see pic below), but I still need to finalize all the positions in CAD so everything is precise and lines up. Although I wanted to keep the PCB as small as I could, something tells me that I might have to make it bigger to allow for more room and spacing for components.

Decided to take a break from the CAD to focus on designing a PCB that will serve as a middle man between the Pi and the other electronics. I finished most of the schematic (still need to add LEDs), and had to do a fair share of datasheet reading in order to figure out what to wire to what. Right now the schematic has a speaker IC, two microphones, a display connector, a giant connector to the Raspberry Pi (which I plan to separate at the endpoint into individual wires), 4 push buttons, and lots of decoupling capacitors. I haven’t decided fully on footprints for some symbols (like the connectors), but I’m leaning right now towards JST connectors so that the inside of the cube is not a messy wire spaghetti. * Fingers crossed * this schematic doesn’t lead to me making a broken PCB.

Moved the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W from being mounted on the ceiling to being mounted with standoffs above the speaker. In the process, I also modified the speaker mount that I made last time to use threaded inserts so the case could be 3D printed easier. After this, I wanted the cube to look better, so I added some cutouts on the sides for LEDs, buttons, and for the microphone. Finally, I ended this session by rounding all the corners ever so slightly with a 1mm fillet, so it won’t be as sharp to touch.

I realized that I needed space to have rubber feet (so that the downward firing speaker’s audio isn’t muffled), so I had to redesign the speaker grill to be smaller. I added in some rubber feet once that was done and there was room. In the process, I also decided to use the rubber feet’s screws as a way to screw the display cover and the rest of the enclosure. Finally, I went on Mouser and found a pretty good fitting speaker for the case, and I mounted it inside the cube with some M3 screws and nuts.

Started on the cube enclosure, and made a speaker grill for the bottom (since I want a downward firing speaker). I also made a slot for the square 1.9” OLED display that I plan to use, and tried to come up with a way to attach the display to the front with threaded inserts, but I didn’t end up figuring out a solution yet. I did however add holes for threaded inserts to hold down a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, which will handle communication with cloud APIs. I had some trouble getting Lookout configured properly with my Stardance project (which is why this devlog is late), so I also journaled all my progress in the GitHub repo I created, just to be safe.