Powered on!

Well, after a long day of debugging it's finally all powered up;  the PCB board required some inter-connects on the back, this was because of some mistakes in the PCB layout.   At the moment I have it running continuously, and I plan to leave it running for at least a good few days.

Almost all soldered up.

I ended up going to my local Maplins for the 3 pots I was missing;  I don't like going there unless I really have to, as it quite expensive for parts.  

Tonight I'll carefully power it up and set it up,  and then run some diagnostic tests.  I'll have to get the header strip connector for the Bluetooth module next week.

PCB's Arrived!!!

(Pic Above, Left) The boards arrived this afternoon!! and I've already "hand" placed a few components to see if they fitted correctly; I think all is good, so far at least!
















(23rd July) At 7am this morning I soldered up one of the boards before work;  I'm missing some parts though; 1 connector for the Bluetooth module and 3 pots; so I'll need to order those when I get chance.

(Pic Below) I was fairly happy with my soldering, except that I need to get some thinner solder wire as mine is too thick,  I've found the board requires a more delicate solder feed approach in order to achieve the right amount of solder for each connection.

PCB's ordered!

This evening I ordered a dozen PCB boards; although I checked and re-checked the files before I sent them,  I can only at best - hope that everything will work out right first time;   they should take around 2-3 weeks to be delivered.  Each PCB will measure approx 4" x 4"  and once they arrive I should have enough parts to make up at least a couple of complete boards, and maybe a few partial ones.

PCB Version!

I finally bit the bullet and tried my hand at PCB layout design. It took a while to get the hang of it; but in the end I managed to get the controller PCB layout done!   I need to verify the layout before I get them actually produced,  just in case there might be foot-print errors.

One of the biggest jobs I found in doing a PCB layout is the parts have to be from a consistent source otherwise some parts might not fit the PCB foot-prints; so instead of sourcing all bits from Ebay,  i'm looking at a more stable electronics component supplier like Digikey etc;   I'll still source some parts from Ebay, but just not all.

One of the reason why I decided to do the PCB was because I've never done a proper PCB before so it was a great learning experience for me;  and it also means the controller will be available to a lot more people who perhaps don't have either the time / skill or tools to create one themselves.

(19th June 2013)
A few parts have arrived, these came from Ebay; the most critical foot-print parts are still en-route from Digikey.  these include the battery holder and the fuse holder.

In the meantime I'm looking at finalizing the PC kiln controller software and I also need to get the documentation PDF completed - more updates as I make more progress!

Short time-lapse build clip

Whilst waiting to purchase some components I thought I'd add a small time-lapse clip to show part of the build process of one the boards which went into the new prototype.  I should of really captured the whole build but I had problems with my camera!

Feature List

• Ramp / Soak temperatures up to 1300c.

• Space for approx 500 programmes and each programme can have up to 255 segments.

• Uses 1 x K-Type thermocouple.

• The programmes are created on the PC then sent to the controller remotely via Bluetooth.

• 32K of log memory;  logs are created for each successful firing. The data can then be pulled from the controller via Bluetooth for display into a graph.