Custom ADS1256 circuit
In this video I show you my new custom-built circuit which is based on a ADS1256 analog-to-digital converter and an ATmega32U4 microcontroller. I’ve been working with this AD-converter for a very long time and I also published many videos on it. Finally, I felt that I gained enough knowledge to make my own board which combines a high resolution AD converter with a microcontroller. The reason I wanted to combine these two things because I wanted to have everything on the same PCB. It looks cleaner, it is more robust, it is easier to put it in an enclosure…etc.
I will show you the whole assembly and testing process. I made a few little mistakes during the assembly and also in the PCB design, but none of them were fatal.
First of all, I forgot to add a ground connection where the ground comes in at the USB connector. It is a pretty funny mistake, because I had it on my ATmeg32U4 PCB and I basically copy-pasted it for the microcontroller part of this design. Since I added the GND tab for probing the circuit, I suspect that I accidentally removed it when I added the tab. This mistake cause most of the circuit to be separated from the ground coming from the USB.
Also, I messed up the soldering to some extent and I probably fried an ATmega32U4 microcontroller. Pretty painful thing to do in these times when there’s a chip shortage. But in general, the soldering needs to be improved; my reflow hot plate seems to provide uneven heating due to the channeled structure of the ceramic plate. I will fix this.
Now, as the board works, I will write my own ADS1256 library and I will finally finish my logging software for PC. Then, this whole package will become a product and hopefully will be helpful for small labs, students, or anyone who wants to log voltage with high resolution.
Gallery and some resources
Some components which might be interesting related to this project. The links below are affiliate links.
