This week, I first designed and milled out a test PCB for our hall effect sensors. While waiting for the sensors to arrive, I began working on the schematics and layout for the actual chess board PCB. Schematics are nearly done, and layout has been started. While designing the chess board PCB, I began looking at costs. To lower costs, we will create the board from 8 duplicates of the same PCB that is large enough for one column or row of the chess board.
Once the sensors and test magnets arrived, I soldered the sensors to the test PCB and worked with Patrick to verify that our magnet choices will work for this design. We found that the diameter of the magnet mattered more than expected in comparison to the strength of the magnet. The results mean that our plan for sensing the color of the pieces will work well, but sensing piece type in addition to color may not work with our initial magnet choices. However, physically larger magnets (not necessarily stronger) are available.
Given this progress, I am back on schedule. However, I do have a large chunk of work set for the next week, so I will have to plan well in order to not start falling behind.
For the next week, I plan to have the chess board PCB and the BOM ready to order.
