Robotont electronics mainboard

robotont-electronics-mainboard

This repository contains electronics schematics and PCB layout of the Robotont 3 mainboard. The project is developed in KiCAD 8 and offers production files for JLCPCB.

Schematics

The scematics of this project have been organized into multiple hierarchical sheets according to the robot subsystems. An outline of the pdf is as follows:

• Robotont mainboard
  • Motor drivers (pages 2–4)
  • Power management and DC-DC converters (pages 5–8)
  • External devices
  • Addressable LEDs
  • Power management subcircuits — switches, power source switching, and current sensing (pages 11–18)

Board layout

The following 3D rendering illustrates the PCB design of the Robotont 3 mainboard.

Setting up for development

Download KiCAD:

If you're on Ubuntu, here's a snippet:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-9.0-releases -y
    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install --install-recommends kicad

Add JLCPCB plugin to KiCAD

This plugin helps to manage rotations and generate production files. See installation instructions in the plugin repository.

Download this repository

    git clone https://github.com/robotont/robotont-electronics-mainboard.git

Ordering the PCB

The production files for JLCPCB are available in the jlcpcb/production_files/ directory.

• Go to jlcpcb.com and create an account if you don't have one.
• Upload the gerber files (GERBER-mainboard.zip) to JLCPCB PCB order wizard.
• Pick two layer PCB with assembly service on both sides. Pick your preferences, color, quantity, etc for the board. The default options have worked ok for now.
  • The addressable LEDs on the bottom side of the board are moisture sensitive and might require additional heated pre-treatment before soldering. If asked, we encourage to include this service as it is rather inconvenient to replace those components later by hand.
• Upload the BOM (BOM-mainboard.csv) and CPL (CPL-mainboard.csv) files to the assembly wizard.
• Review the component availability along with their placement and confirm the order.