Preparing for fab

This last week I've been working with my favorite circuit board design software. It's no secret to many who know me that I'm a serious nerd so it should come as little surprise that I'm finally getting one of my projects I've worked on fabricated.


It's a power control board. I'll hook it up to a computer serial port and issue the PIC16F688 commands to enable and disable power through any one of the 4 relays on the right side of the board.

I've never done this before. In fact... I'm not even sure it's going to work. Sure, I'm confident enough to spend $78 for a run of boards and $35/board on parts, but really, do I KNOW it's going to work?

Keep reading to see how Shaun's first steps into embedded design go.