When I was recovering from a hernia operation I designed a clock around an Arduino, real time clock board and temperature/humidity sensor. This was built onto breadboard and was as flaky as hell due to poor connections.
Recently I decided to build the project using perfboard, which is messy and caused 2 magic smoke release incidents, and bought a case to keep it all looking tidy.
Did I mention perfboard was messy?
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PerfBottom-1024x820.jpg)
The top does look a bit cleaner.
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PerfTop-1024x703.jpg)
I decided to try my hand at PCB design so I got to grips with that at EasyEDA and sent of the design to PCBWay for production. A few weeks later I had 11 prototype PCBs.
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/pcbs-1024x461.jpg)
The PCB wasn’t perfect (my fault). The silkscreen was slightly wrong and I found out after build that the SDA and SCL connections were reversed.
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PCBBottom-1024x772.jpg)
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PCBTop-1024x875.jpg)
I patched the cock-up and everything worked!
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Patched-1-726x1024.jpg)
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/InBox-1024x833.jpg)
Then I added some external buttons and all is complete!
![](https://blog.colinjones.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Complete-1024x725.jpg)
I have corrected the PCB design and gave it rounded corners, sent off the order and now just await delivery. All in all I’m very pleased with this 🙂
Just below the picture of the PCB upper surface.
You patched up the what?
Filth. Disgusting filth
You say that like it’s a bad thing 😉
Nice. I’ve never had the courage to send off a PCB design. Veroboard all the way for me so far.
It was a big step but one I’m so glad I took!