Train Scholarship Week 3 Circuit Board

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Genaro Rivera

Week three Circuit Board

Etching (Last week)



For this week, I decided to not focus on MATLAB; Instead, I will talk about how my group’s circuit board for a payload weather balloon. The patterns came from a software program that was printed out on paper which we imprinted on the board in the chemistry lab. We performed a chemical process called etching. Firstly, we placed a thin glass between the paper and copper board (facing the right way), turned off the lights and shined the board with a light for 8 minutes, removed the glass, and took the copper board to a tub of tap water. Here, we rock the tub, take out the board, and let it dry on a paper towel. Afterwards, we pick it up and dip into ferric chloride. Although the ferric chloride is premade, we learned that ferric chloride occurs when you mix hydrochloric acid, water, and any type of iron. After the reaction (takes one day), you add hydrogen peroxide and get ferric chloride which can etch copper. Once inside, we gently move the board around over a light and wait 20 minutes to see the patterns appear. Lastly, we dry the board and now the board is ready. (Note: the picture is from after we drilled the holes which I explain next).

Drilling (Last Friday-this Monday)




 

The next step was drilling holes. The holes are for soldering wires of electrical components (batteries, resistors, capacitors, diodes, etc…) which I explain later. Here we drilled holes where circles were present on the board. The color of the hole indicated whether to use a 0.6 mm, 1.0 mm, or 1 inch drill. The holes had to be accurate within a tenth of a millimeter for components to fit. However, if a hole was slightly off, it mattered little if the other holes were lined up with that one and off by the same amount. The holes came out good. However, one line did not which we fixed through soldering and redrilling the holes.

 

Soldering (Monday-Thursday)




The next step involved soldering. Here, we practiced on pieces of wood before soldering on our board. When ready, we soldered the components onto the board. Each of us soldered during our free time since it was a one-man job. The basic idea behind soldering is, you stick two wires connected to a component onto the circuit board so that the component is hugging the circuit board and the wires are sticking out on the other side. You then go to the side with the wires and melt a piece of soldering wire onto the holes so that it creates a clumped-up dry ball that holds the component in place. You then cut extra wires with pliers. The only real issue was knowing what goes where especially with capacitors since capacitors are polar (have a negative and positive side). Soldering was enjoyable once I got use to it which did not take long.

Final Product





                      We finished soldering the components this week. The light bulb in the image above confirmed that that circuit board worked. This Friday and throughout next week, we will be working with Arduinos and sensors to attach to the weather balloon payload.

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