Devlog 4 - Electronic Chess Board
What I Did:
-Designed minimalist-esque chess pieces in Blender
-Made a hole in the base of each piece design to place magnets with a diameter of 8mm
Devlog 3 - Electronic Chess Board
What I Did:
-Changed the LED footprint to the footprint for upright, flat-head LEDs
-Changed the A3144 footprint to a footprint where the pads are further apart, to make soldering easier (initially I was going to go for PCBA, but after checking the price, it is not worth it; hence, I will be doing the soldering by hand)
-Rewired the LED and A3144 grids
Devlog 2 - Electronic Chess Board
What I Did:
-I placed all of the LEDs for each square
-I placed all of the a3144s for each square
-I placed the S8550 transistors that control the rows
-I placed the header pins that allow the two separate microcontroller boards (the Arduino Mega for the 5v logic to power the A3144s; the ESP32 to ‘grab’ the chess engine move from the code)
-I placed the UART connections for the two separate boards
-I created a board outline, along with square outlines, on the silkscreen layer
Devlog 1 - Electronic Chess Board
What I Did:
-I created a schematic of an 8x8 grid of A3144 Hall effect sensors, which have their VCC leads tied to S8550 PNP transistors, in rows of 8 (8 transistors, each providing power to a separate row of 8 Hall effect sensors). Their GND leads are all tied together to a header pin that will be connected to an Arduino Mega 2560. Their VOUT leads are connected in columns. This multiplexing approach allows me to cut down the total GPIO pins required from 64 down to 16. The emitter of the S8550s’ is connected to a 5V supply, which I will connect to the board via a header pin. The base of each S8550 will be connected to an Arduino Mega 2560 GPIO pin, through a header pin.
-I created a schematic of an 8x8 grid of LEDs. The LED matrix follows a similar setup to the hall effect sensors, with 8 S8550s, each connected to a row of 8 LED anodes. Then 8 header pins are connected to the cathodes in columns. The S8550s’ emitter pins will be connected to a 3.3V supply that will connect to the board using a header pin. The bases will either be connected to an Arduino Mega 2560 or an ESP32 (most likely the latter, as I will need an ESP32 for the chess moves anyway)
-I created a small UART connection for the Arduino Mega 2650 and ESP32, so that the Arduino can send the hall effect sensor readings to the ESP32, and the ESP32 can relay that information to the chess engine.
-I added a small area for an 0.96-inch OLED screen to attach onto, in the case that I want to add some extra functionality to the board (e.g., a clock or menu screen)
