Boards!

Post date: Apr 26, 2014 2:06:50 PM

The Fretboard design is based around the WS2812B LEDs. I decided to only do the first octave of the fretboard (48 LEDs!!). Each LED can be thought of as one bit in a shift register. The shift register is clocked at 800 kHz. I used the Adafruit library to get things up and running quickly.

I started the design in Eagle, but the board size is limited to like 4 x 5 inches, so I had to switch over to Altium. I use Altium at work, so in reality, it made things faster. The schematic and pcb files (and library parts) are in The Library. The board is trapezoidal in shape and about 10 inches long. I think I should have tried to compress the outline a bit more (next spin! bug/fix list in The Office.) Assembly wasn't bad, but if you can afford it, I really really recommend a decent soldering iron (JBC Soldering Irons) and a good microscope. Yeah, I'm spoiled and no, I don't have that kind of stuff in my home lab. I'm cheap.

I had the boards made by Sunstone. $129 for two boards. Guaranteed one week turn. Don't scrimp on the shipping though. I didn't notice that I used UPS ground and I ended up waiting an extra week for my boards to arrive. Total assembly time was about 2 hours (98 parts).