Dial up your PCB design expertise with an LED quantity management protect

The fantastic thing about Arduino growth boards is that they allow you to soar proper into prototyping. Simply join the sensors, buttons, LEDs, or no matter different {hardware} you require to the Arduino’s I/O pins, code and flash a sketch, and also you’re in enterprise. However you would possibly come to a stage the place you need one thing extra polished than a breadboard or perfboard. While you attain that stage, you’ll be able to observe together with YouTuber Upir’s LED quantity knob challenge to learn to design your first PCB. 

Upir selected to make use of an Arduino Leonardo board for this challenge as a result of its ATmega32U4 microcontroller’s built-in USB HID performance. That implies that it may be configured to indicate up as a USB mouse or keyboard when plugged into any laptop, whatever the working system or software program that laptop runs. On this case, that makes it simple to ship keyboard shortcuts that modify the pc’s quantity. 

The {hardware} for this challenge, along with the Leonardo itself, consists of a potentiometer knob, LEDs, and resistors. The sketch units the variety of lit LEDs to correspond to the present quantity degree. Upir first prototyped the circuit on a breadboard to check the Sketch and capabilities. Then he designed a devoted PCB protect for the Arduino. In his video under, Upir goes into element on each step of the PCB design course of in open supply KiCAD software program. This data is effective to anybody enthusiastic about studying tips on how to create their very own PCBs.

In case you observe Upir’s directions, both for this challenge or an identical design, you’ll find yourself with a set of information that you would be able to ship to any PCB fabrication service to get professional-quality boards.