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dio_tester_and_breakout

This is an old revision of the document!


During the 2018 season, we hand-wired a little board to break out and debug the Digital I/O wiring to the break-beam sensor. This project is about a PC Board to replace that, and for other DIO testing and wiring.

* Review DIO (Digital I/O) in the roborio digital IO section.

Here's a perfboard prototype and a sketch of what we're building (click for a bigger image): We might or might not include the test button.

What's on this board:

  • Connectors
  • * Female 3-pin socket for cable to RoboRIO
  • * Male 3-pin header to connect to switch, device, or sensor.
  • Yellow LED indicates that power is present on the DIO cable. This is an instance of a Basic LED circuit
  • Red LED lights when the signal is “low”, perhaps because it has been connected to ground by a switch or sensor. This is a slight variant on the Basic LED circuit

Not on the prototype, but hinted on the shematic: additional male headers. The break-beam sensor needs two things wired up: the source and the detector. Sometimes we won't install the actual headers, but will just solder individual wires into the holes - but we can still use the same fabricated board blank.

Schematic

Before reading this section and studying the DIO tester schematic, you might want to review:

The schematic and board files for our design is in our github

We used this DIO tester design to start learning about how to do schematics and board designs; our printed circuit boards pages use this design as an illustration.

Here's a screen shot of the complete schematic:

(TODO picture)

On the schematic are:

  • a basic LED circuit that lights up yellow if the +5v power is present and connected.
  • a slightly modified LED circuit that lights a red LED if the signal wire is LOW (connected to ground)
  • Four connectors: one socket for connecting to the RoboRio, and three headers for sensors.

The LED for signal-is-LOW

The Printed Circuit Board Design

We followed the steps in our kicad pcb layout to design the copper traces on the board.

Our first order of 6 boards was done at oshpark. The project is here: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/UVZvYEPw

We're expecting them back in early december 2018.

Building the Board

dio_tester_and_breakout.1542901978.txt.gz · Last modified: 2018/11/22 10:52 by tell