Devlog 2

The design phase went pretty well. It helped that I had a design almost immediately when I saw the parts.

Moving on to the next part of design, the schematic phase also went by quickly now that I had the hackpad to reference. I started working on my PCB and ran into the first small roadblock. Where do I put the microcontroller? I don’t want to have an awkward empty space at the top of my case, but I still need room for it. I thought I’d just deal with the problem later and eventually settled on putting it on the side of the key matrix.

Then KiCad decided to crash without saving my PCB.
About 45mins of work just gone. So I had to restart the PCB design. But it wasn’t entirely bad. I realized the empty space that the microcontroller took up could be where the screen went. This would also allow me to make my alarm clock thinner as well.

So I guess thanks, KiCad, for crashing. Please never do that again.

PS. Why was the microcontroller on the schematic different from the one in the PCB? I triple checked and made sure I chose the same options as they did.