GAH DAMN MY PCB IS WORKING!!! Timelapse below!

I spent the last few hours carefully soldering my new PCB. I decided to use 0805 for all smd component cuz in my last project, I used 0603 ones and it was PURE TORTURE to solder them all lol. lessen learnt!

Overall, I absolutely love the pcb outcome its nicer than I expected especially the ws2812b led and all those smd resistor (they look so sci-fi xD).

However there was one flaw, I forgot about the ESP32 antenna. I’m forced to awkwardly fit the antenna on the pcb back (right beside my Great Wave silkscreen print). Luckily it didn’t block it lol. This is something I needa keep in mind the next time!

You might be wondering what’s that tiny pin header I used there. It’s just a pin header, but for the design, I wanted it to be ultra slim, so I designed a PCB sandwich layout. The battery fits perfectly between the e-paper pcb and my pcb. However the problem with normal pin headers is that they are super chunky, they have like 9mm gap. That instantly ruin the whole vibe…

So after hours of digging in aliexpress, I found those low profile pin header. They are SUPER PERFECT for my project (6mm gap), which is exactly my battery thickness!!! Anyways the low profile pin header was NOT CHEAP at all… well at least its so worth it.

Other than soldering the PCB, I did a few adjustment to the firmware, including: rotary encoder logic improvement - I used interrupt pin logic to read it, they place the rotary encoder at the toppest priority (if theres any changes in pin state, the esp32 instantly ignore everything and focus on the encoder).

That’s all for now, stay tuned! its so fun