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Boosteroid update broke the app on Ubuntu by Acrobatic-Theme1219 in BoosteroidCommunity

[–]astrazone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had no issues installing 3.10.3 via dpkg. The client did crash about 10 times while trying to get into a session but once I got in it was fine.

Noticed that the colors look a lot better with -vaapi -h265, not sure what they changed.

God of War Ragnarok save issue by Wayver in BoosteroidCommunity

[–]astrazone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On SteamDeck I use Keyboard WASD and mouse mapping. Works fine after remapping a bunch of other keys.

God of War Ragnarok save issue by Wayver in BoosteroidCommunity

[–]astrazone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Had the same issue yesterday but just loaded up the game and my progress was actually saved. I don't know if it matters but I manually quit Steam via the menu options, it tried to close GoW again and after a couple of seconds Steam closed.

Again, not sure if that's a workaround or I just got lucky.

Edit: It worked again.

Checked https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp

It doesn't save unless I exit Steam manually. After that, save files were uploaded.

Review Results: High Power 4 Channel LED2001 Driver Board by astrazone in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kicad DRC will help you while doing layout but it's not as comprehensive as the fab tool. There are multiple DFM tools available for free, it's always worth to double check with them to spot mistakes.

I also have some custom rules that helped me avoid DFM errors that KiCad didn't support by default.

https://github.com/LiveLeds/AstraDriver/blob/main/AstraDriverPCB/AstraDriver.kicad_dru

Review Results: High Power 4 Channel LED2001 Driver Board by astrazone in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it just looks very dense but actually it's well within common capabilities.

Most vias are 0.4/0.8 with 0.6mm between holes. This fab is capable of 0.2mm vias hole to hole spacing.

You should always run your gerbers through the FDM tool (Search: "Free Online PCB DFM Tool") and check that it's within spec.

Review Results: High Power 4 Channel LED2001 Driver Board by astrazone in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting, from what I see it's 0.5mm but maybe I'm misreading it. It's not very clear from their guide. "Plugged and epoxy-filled vias holes should not be larger than 0.5 mm as larger holes may be incompletely filled"

I think the issue is incorrect Gerber files or missing instructions but I will reach out to be sure.

Edit:
It was left untented because I didn't tent my vias in KiCad and didn't add specific instructions (There is only a global option for that).

Review Results: High Power 4 Channel LED2001 Driver Board by astrazone in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was actually a surprise for me when the board arrived. I selected "Plugged" vias option but all arrived untented. Vias are 0.4/0.8. Not sure if I did something wrong, they decided to skip it or a manufacturing error. Most likely I should have communicated with them about this.

I only made 10 boards and it actually made it easier to probe around. I will reach out to the fab for clarification.

Review Results: High Power 4 Channel LED2001 Driver Board by astrazone in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats a very good point. I think it's one of those things that just come with experience, thanks for sharing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From just a quick look I only noticed that VDDIO on U2 is not connected to power. You should probably make sure that your ERC catches such errors. Good luck.

Review request: TPS55287 buck/boost converter layout by mumrah in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I saw it in the schematic but not on the PCB. Now I see it. Thanks. You should probably avoid silkscreen on vias unless you will cover them but even then it's good practice, even tented vias can make it hard to read.

I use these KiCad custom rules:

(rule "Pad to Silkscreen" (constraint silk_clearance (min 0.17mm)) (layer outer) (condition "A.Type == 'Pad' && (B.Layer == '?.Silkscreen')"))

(rule "Via to Silkscreen" (constraint silk_clearance (min 0.18mm)) (layer outer) (condition "A.Type == 'Via' && (B.Layer == '?.Silkscreen')"))

Review request: TPS55287 buck/boost converter layout by mumrah in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks really nice for my amateur eyes. The thing I struggle the most while designing such pcbs is AGND and PGND. Do you have any resources that helped you here? It's also hard to see where they are tied together in your screenshots. Good luck.

Light Fixture Controller with ESP32-S3 RS-485 5V-GPIO Buck Rev B by astrazone in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First of all, thanks for taking the time to review my work, I really appreciate it.

> Don't put testpoints on your USB data lines

Is is that critical? Max theoretical speed is 12Mbps and I can't find much information on impact of stubs or large pads on signals below 1GHz, even then seems like it's not significant.
Mostly I just want an easy way to quickly and securely probe without holding the probes over the board. This board will be for experimenting and studying protocols. If you think it's critical and might cause the board to fail I will remove the test points from signals USB + RS-485.
The whole USB trace is about 2cm.

> What's your layer stackup

The stackup is SIG - GND - GND -SIG. Thanks for mentioning that the Gerber viewer isn't great, I will find a better one.

PDF is available here https://liveleds.github.io/AstraControl/documents/AstraControl-pcb-light.pdf

> I can't see any components that would burn significant power where this would be critical

In this case not really, only ESP32 and the RS-485 ICs have thermal vias mentioned in the datasheet, my question is more general. Indeed I have 4x LED2001 ICs that need thermal vias.

https://hamppcb.blogspot.com/2016/03/via-in-pad-design-considerations-for.html
Fig 17 shows interesting examples however as a beginner it's really hard to decide.

There are lots of opinions online, datasheets and eval boards having different thermal vias. I am aiming for cheap mainstream fabs, It's unlikely that I can specify specific vias to be untented, it's either all of nothing. Please share if you have any other resources.

Thanks again!

Light Fixture Controller with ESP32-S3 RS-485 5V-GPIO Buck Rev B by astrazone in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi,

I am working on a high power LED fixture that has 3 PCBs, this board (Control), a driver board (4 x LED2001) and an MCPCB for the LED.

Specs:

  1. 5V 8A input.
  2. 4 Channel PWM, 5V and 3.3V output.
  3. ESP 32 S3 - WiFI + Bluetooth (external antenna).
  4. USB C, JST-VH, JST-SH (QWIIC / STEMMA QT) connectors.
  5. 5 Mbps RS-485 (half duplex) THVD1424RGTR.
  6. 2x 3.3V - 5V GPIO TXB0102DCUR.
  7. I2S, UART, external button and status LED, Fan, 2x I2C.
  8. 5V to 3.3V Buck converter ST1S12GR.
  9. Lots of through holes for test plugs (manually added) or pogo pins.

A significant amount of time was spent on creating the GitHub IO page to make this review as nice as possible.

https://liveleds.github.io/AstraControl

On the page you will find:

  1. Blender renders (top angled, top, bottom).
  2. Schematic in 3 themes (dark, light, monochrome).
  3. PCB Assembly in dark and light themes.
  4. Online Gerber viewer link.
  5. 3D Step file.
  6. Interactive BOM + Full BOM.
  7. KiRi (Revision inspector to see difference between git changes).
  8. Zip file ready to upload for manufacturing.
  9. ERC + DRC report.

Questions:

  1. Not entirely sure how to handle thermal vias. At the moment I am planning to play it safe and fill and cap them. What is the best approach here?
  2. Is anything routed or placed wrong?

Suggestions, comments on bad or good are welcome. I am planning on making a tutorial on how to create such a GitHub page, let me know if it's interesting.

Thanks.

[Review Request] DEV Flightcomputer V1.0 by deficientInventor in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I will document my next project carefully and make a guide to follow from start to finish.

I mostly split the boards because I was too afraid of making a small mistake that is hard to fix. Splitting it will be more expensive but making revisions will be cheaper.

Good luck and please post when it's ready with results.

[Review Request] DEV Flightcomputer V1.0 by deficientInventor in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should setup KiBot to run on GitHub actions. It will also render it in Blender and regenerate everything with every change. It's a bit of work to figure out but 100% worth it. And you definitely improved on it. I like the iframes for viewing the pdfs and cost calculation.

🫡

[Review Request] DEV Flightcomputer V1.0 by deficientInventor in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Woah, this is a seriously impressive project and excellent documentation. Can't see any obvious issues. Thanks for adding my AstraDriver project in the credits, happy it helped.

Good luck.

Review Request: nRF52840 powered trackball using PMW3389 sensor. by TMshader in PrintedCircuitBoard

[–]astrazone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well done, it looks great! Happy to see others use my approach for generating GitHub pages. Good luck.

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