In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing - Post 7 (WE Direkt PCB)

tomaja

30 Jan 2015

Previous posts:

In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing

In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing – Post 1 (Pollen Sensor)

In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing – Post 2

In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing – Post 3 (AirVantage Intro)

In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing – Post 4 (Preparing the InTheAir Power Board)

In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing – Post 5 (InTheAir Power Board)

In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing – Post 6 (HDC1000 Sensor)

I was very busy at work the last couple of weeks so I couldn’t work that much but now I can concentrate on my build.

Power supply PCB + sensor connectors

Last week I received my prototype PCB from WE Direkt. I’m very happy with what they did. I’m not an expert since this is my second outsourced PCB but it looks really great. SeeedStudio board that I ordered a couple of years ago was fine too, but this one is looking much more professional. Pads are gold plated (not really required but still).

Even though the price shown on WEDirekt site during checkout was a bit higher it was reduced after they did the “data check”. They take into account the board size and reduce the price if possible. So, I had to pay ~25€ after all and got the board in 7 days.

The only issue with the board (that I'm aware of) is my fault - I submitted BRD file and left some layer that wasn't supposed to be there. That's why there are overlapping silkscreen labels all over it.

I took these pictures using my phone so they’re not top quality. I will use a proper camera when I finish the board completely.

Image 1 - PCB from WE Direkt

Thanks to WE and especially sleuz I got the capacitor kit so I had all the necessary capacitors for my build.

Image 2 - Würth capacitor kit (0805)

However, I still didn’t receive inductor kits that everyone else got as part of challenge kit. As a workaround, Simon sent me just the required inductors until I (hopefully) receive those kits. Interesting thing about those inductors is that I had to pay duty + tax for 5 inductors from Simon that cost 1.15€! That’s really silly, but what can you do It was just around 0.35€ of duty and tax but it takes time to handle it so I’m still waiting for them too.

So, many thanks to Simon and WE!

Some resistors are still missing from the board but I will get those locally so they should be acquired quickly.

Current board state

This is my first ever SMD board/soldering but I think it might end up looking nice anyway. I was using hot air station (for SMD) and soldering iron (for through-hole parts).

Please disregard the HDC1000, I was just playing with it and forgot to take it out.