Saturday Diversion

For a little diversion, I decided to re-design my "Tinket" clone into a "Digispark" clone.  The original PCB looks pretty bad because my laser printer was just about out of toner.  The traces are grainy and I have had to repair it a couple of times now.  So when it began acting flaky again I decided I would give it another go.  I now have a little more experience with KiCAD so I should be able to do better.  The new toner will certainly help!

Here are the results:

I got rid of the reset button (Digisparks use it as a 6th I/O pin) and added a simple 7805 power supply.  It's not up to Digispark standards but it was what I had on hand.

My copper etching has gotten good enough that I wanted to try using a copper fill to help my etchant last a bit longer.  I had not done it until now because my soldering was just too sloppy.  I would bridge traces and cause all sorts of problems.  But now, I have to say, I am good enough at it that it just is not a problem anymore.  How?

• Better iron
• Smaller solder
• Practice
  

I still occasionally get too much on a joint... and I really should go back and wick them down... but I am lazy... and there are a lot of things to solder.  Anyway, I have fun and am proud of what I can build.  Now on to my next project...