So I'm actually to a point on this thermostat that I'm ready to actually start building the PC board that contains controller and accompanying components (the smarts of the innards). I've actually spent a few hours placing, soldering and wiring the parts on the prototype board. This is tedious work to say the least, you are working with tiny parts and a soldering iron (which is essentially a pen shaped, skin searing device that rests at 700 degrees F). Burned skin, strained eyes and fingers are consistently a by-product of this process.
Here is a front/back pic of the progress I've made so far; I'm at about 40% complete:
So at this point in the soldering process, already sick of it and looking for alternatives, I visited a few PCB (Printed Circuit Board) websites and found an awesome (fairly) new website and service setup for people making prototype PCBs.(Hey wait, I'm a people wanting to make protoype PCBs) Making PCBs aren't very expensive, as long as you are getting hundreds of them made at a time, to make small one, it's quite expensive.
The service that I found essentially takes dozens of submissions for boards from multiple customers and places them together like a puzzle on one big board. Then it sends this large, completed puzzle off to get it printed. When it gets this large board, it slices up all the pieces to distribute to everyone. This way, the price is divided up among the dozens of people building boards. BRILLIANT!!
So for about $15 I can design my own PCB and have it printed for me. Screw all this start-from-scratch fabrication crap! The downside is that there is a 3 week delay before I get the board back, but that's acceptable.
So, the last couple night's I downloaded the software used to design and route the board, read a few tutorials and got to work. Within a few short hours, I'm almost ready to send off my first PCB! Sweetness!!
Here's a screenshot of the layout of the PCB:
I'll keep you posted when this baby shows up. Stay tuned!
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