Nebula

Working on CAD and Assembling hardware.

Finished Routing My PCB:
Process:
STEP 1. Check all schematics
STEP 2. Use auto routing function, define the thickness or trace for each type of trace: eg. 11.1V-1.25mm, logic-0.254mm, 5V-0.9mm……etc.
STEP 3. Skip the routing for GND nets
STEP 4. Adjust any wiring
STEP 5. Pour Copper layer for the grounds
—————————————————–The process sounds easy, atleast that’s what I though at first, but here are some things that I learned and challenges encounter in the process:

1. Schematics is the easy part, do it well and it could you could save alot of time in the routing section.
2. When letting the software to handle auto-routing, make sure to leave out the GND nets so make the wiring less complex.
3. Route the GND nets at last with copper filled layer to ensure all grounds and securely connected.
4. Issue encounted->Isolated island
   As posted in the image, even after pouring in the GND layer , there still is a ratline between the ground port of C7 to other components, meaning the ground of the part is not connected. This is a common issue for auto routing other nets first , ignoring ground and make it an isolated island.

Solution:
To fix the problem, I swap the position of C7 and U8 so that the C7 will not be caught in the connectionof U8 to my ESP which is the main reason why C7 is electronically isolated.
After that, we can simply regenerate the ground copper layer to fix the issue.

1. Issue encounted-> Antenna Clearout:
   Since my project will rely heavily on RC control, I need to clearout the copper ground below the antenna part of my esp as the double copper layer could potentially block radio signal.

That’s it for now, the design final reaches “DRC(0)” and now I am adding silktouch design to the bottom layer for the final touch before sending the file for production!!!!!
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See yall later.

Polishing My Schematics, AGAIN!!!
Since My previous schematics relied heavily on net ports, it becomes hard to understand the relationship between components as I moved on to the routing part. Therefore, I am now going back to the schematics and check the wiring block by block.
Current Progress:

• Power Block
• Sensors and Servos
• MPU6050
• Stepper Driver
• Logic / Pinout of ESP
• Stepper Motor
  Currently(2/6).
  Checking progress includes tiding up wires and use more wires instead of all net ports.
  Checking amounts of decoupling capacitor needed for each component.
  Making sure that each individual block of components can run (electrically).

Yeah, hope I get back to routing soon and finish the PCB, also, I want to gather some idea for PCB art for my first functionable PCB, so submit any ideas through commenting on this dev post of consider following vtr_lab on instagram(I am close to having more post than followers😭😭).

Thanks alot~
2026/6/29, Victor

Finalizing schematics and layout before routing- Problems encounter: clearing messy schematics, double checking component layouts, making sure the system links as planned. The main curren t struggle from being able to route the PCB is that some of the capacitors had been incorrectly route in the schematics part, therefore, I will need to take inspection into them before moving on.

I spent an afternoon finalizing my schematics and turned it into a PCB. After I finished the schematics, I entered the wiring phase and put all the components into a 84*59mm board that will be house in my final robot. The arrangement of the components took more time than I expected as some wiring were needed to be redesign so that the wiring on the board would not be that complicated and span across the whole board. Overall, I am satisfy with the current placement of the modules and will be starting to wire up the components tomorrow. Side note: I got the filaments needed to print the case of my robot so production and assembly is near!!!!(So excited, Hardware>Software). Anyways, see ya’ll tomorrow when hopefully I can finish all the wiring on the components!

Working on the schematics for a custom PCB in the robot. For the project, I am using EasyEDA to make my PCB. I am finished with the schematics and will be moving onto the wiring part. I am very excited to see this project come together. for the components in the project, I used a 11.1v battery as the robots power source, ESP32 as main logi c and control as it could bluetooth connect to my joystick controller, I chose a MAX7219 LED matrix as the face of the robot to give it a pixel-ly feel, and i used two 24mm nema17 as the robots drivetrain. Lastly, I hvae a HC-SR04 distance sensor and more importantly a MPU 6050 for the robots tilt feedback and achieve two wheel balance.

Recap on past CAD on the project and explore color scheme for the final build.
I started my design on the self-balancing robot almost a month before Stardance started, therefore, most of the CAD was finished in this period, except for the rim of the wheels which I have not settle on a design that I like yet. For my first time lapse on the the project, I replicated a wheel rim that I tested different color on my robot in Fusion360. I mainly focus on design with two colors for ease of printing and not using tons of different rolls of filament.
So the hardware part of the robot is almost done, therefore, I will move on to PCB design with EasyEdaSTD for the next step and try more types wheel rim for my final design. Initially, I was going to use perfboards for the wiring, but I fear that could get messy and hard to debug real quick. I am currently done with half of the schematics and finalized the hardware modules using.
(Please following Instagram: vtr_lab)(thx)

A self balancing Robot driven on two Nema 17 stepper motor and ESP 32 as main logic control.

Currently, I am 85% done with hardware design, except the mount for the stepper motors. I am designing my CAD in Fusion360 and working on custom PCB in EasyEDA.

In addition, how do I track work time outside coding, like working on PCB or Hardware, how are those hours logged into Hackclub? Thank you!