Marc's GBZ

[marco]

Hi, first of all thank you for all the contributors of this forum!
I learnt a lot and I didn't think this kind of project was feasible until I stumbled here last summer.
My first reaction was: these guys are crazy. To quote master Obiwan: "Who is more foolish the fool or the fool who follows?"
Now my project is finished, and it's my turn to bring my own share, I documented in my own website:
https://sites.google.com/site/marcoproj ... meboy-zero
Feel free to step by and drop any comment you would have right here on this forum.
Looking forward getting some comments on this build.
Cheers,
Marc

[abrugsch]

WOW! That is some fine hacking going on there

Nice mix of hand-etched (Double sided! ) PCB's and re-use of original PCB's :thumbup:
question... I see you're using KiCad, where did you get the footprints for the button landing pads? did you convert them from SVG? (I'm using KiCad for mine and have made some landing pads but they are much simpler, just using the footprint editor)

Great use of a QI charger too! I might have to try and fit that into my build now

[marco]

Thank you abrugsch!
Indeed, it's a mix of hand-etched and re-use of original PCB.
Yes I use KiCad and I love it This little program allow you to create amazing PCB with very little ressources, BTW I'm still on XP.

I made the button landing pads myself directly with copper trace. The R and L are slighlty different to adjust to remaining space on the PCB around this area.
Here is how I did it:
*First I created my button with nice figure from a SPST switch:

*Then in layout, after importing the netlist, I manually deleted the button footprint and connect mine. As far as I remember the DRC doesn't complain much about that.
*I draw landing pattern manually with strict space of 0.5mm between track, and each track is 0.750mm, here is a detailed screenshot of the layout:

The trace are 0.750mm which is large enough to be easily manually etched with sharp pattern.
I maintained a strict 0.5mm space thanks to dummy trace of 0.5mm that I placed by temporary disabling the DRC checker, and I eventually deleted them afterwards.
It took me hours to do that but the result is perfect!
*Here is a global view of L & R landings:

[abrugsch]

Cool I didn't think of that but as I'm going to be using a fabricator (dirtyPCB's, pcbway or oshpark...) I'd have to add it to the solder mask layer which of course doesn't apply to your hand etched board.
I think I can still do it in the footprint editor, just will take some more editing.