What I learnt

In this class, I learnt how to make an ISP programmer. This was my first time doing something like this and I was pretty confused on what to do. First, I had to download a few files to install the Windows toolchain. This step was relatively easy although I did make a few mistakes such as downloading the file into the wrong location. Then, I had to download the traces and outline png files from here to make a gcode. I had to go onto mods and find the program to make the gcode and this was where I first got stuck. I did not know which program I had to use and had to ask my classmates where it was.

After making the gcodes for the traces and outline, I could then cut them out. This was where I messed up again. The first attempt I did on cutting it out, the mill got stuck while cutting the outline and I had to abort the process as the coorinates where already wrong and I did not know how to fix it. Then on the second attempt, one of the pads was cut off as the v-bit was to large and so I had to redo it again. In the last attempt, I used a 10 degree v-bit instead of a 20 degree v-bit and this time the process went smoothly.

I then went on to solder the components onto the board. I also made a few mistakes here too. I had soldered the zener diode in the wrong direction and had to resolder it, and did not solder the solder jumper. I also forgot to put solder flux on 2 of the USB contacts so now they are not as flat as I would have liked them. However I did learn that I had very shaky hands that made soldering quite time consuming for me, it had taken several tries to just get a component into the position I wanted them to be. The finished product is shown below/

The wire used to connect the programmer and other boards need to have the wire on the side with the triangle to coincide with the one on the other side. I then had to use the lecturer's ISP programmer to program my ISP programmer. I had some issues here as I initially did not know that I was supposed to use another ISP programmer to program it. Though I did complete it in the end.

Overall, this lesson was pretty interesting and was pretty fun to do, I learnt a lot from it.

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