Custom ADS1256 board - revised version
In this video I show you the revised version of my ADS1256 8-channel voltage logger board. I did a few mistakes in the previous, prototype version and I wanted to fix those mistakes.
What’s new:
The board received a black silkscreen. The letters of the components are less flashy, there’s more emphasis is on the components.
The tracks are “melted” and the holes have teardrops. These are inspired by mitxela.
A typo was fixed: previously, I wrote “20 ksps” instead of “30 ksps”.
Some slight alignment was done on the silk screen text.
I also tried another soldering/reflow method. I used my own DIY reflow station but at this time I used another heating element. Previously, I used a ceramic heater but unfortunately, I could not achieve even heating and the board was heated up in an uneven way. While half of the components were already cooking in the molten solder, the other half of the board was still cold enough so the solder was still solid. This new heating element provides a much better heat distribution, but it has other issues. Since the heating wires are wrapped in a stainless steel foil, the foil bulges during the heating because of its thermal expansion. Since the material is restricted in movement because it is made into a single piece, it has no other was to “absorb” the expansion but to buckle. The buckling unfortunately has a negative effect because the contact area between the surface of the heater and the bottom of the PCB becomes smaller and uneven, therefore the heating and reflowing is affected negatively. Once I solve this issue, I will publish another video on the new soldering station. I think it worth to discuss it, because these “mica heaters” are extremely good for soldering.
After fixing the small soldering issues, I tested the board and it was working! I made much better job with the application of the solder and soldering that I barely had to retouch the components. The board was recognized by my PC, it showed up in the device manager as an ATmega32U4 microcontroller.
Extra pictures and resources
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