What did you personally accomplish this week on the project?
I did a bit of work with Apollo and we brainstormed ideas for implementation. I have a rough idea of the hardware required which is bounded by the specs presented, and I started to come up with a rough hand drawing of what the PCB will look like. I’ve started the first step in the PCB process, doing component capture step. This is where you select components, and add in those models into Altium. I’ve found a type of nmos transistor that I both think would be suitable, and would be able to come in time. Furthermore, I am also trying to decide if I do hand assembly or if I have the PCB fabrication house do the entire assembly and component placement.
The nmos transistor I selected has the right voltage and current ratings for what we need, and the package size should work well with the layout I’m sketching out. I’m still working through some of the other key components like the power management ICs and making sure everything plays nicely together. The component availability has been pretty good so far, which is helping keep things on track timeline-wise. For the assembly question, I’m leaning towards having the fab house do it since it would be more reliable and probably faster, but I need to get quotes to see if it fits the budget. If costs are too high, I might do a hybrid approach where they place the fine-pitch components and I handle the through-hole stuff myself. I’m also double-checking that all the footprints I’m adding to Altium match what I can actually get, since that’s bitten me before on other projects.
Is your progress on schedule or behind? If you are behind, what actions will be taken to catch up to the project schedule?
My progress is on schedule. The component selection phase is progressing well and I’m making good headway on understanding the hardware requirements and constraints.
What deliverables do you hope to complete in the next week?
Next week I plan to finish the component capture process in Altium, finalize the selection of remaining key components like power management ICs, and get assembly quotes from PCB fabrication houses to make the final decision on assembly approach. I also want to complete the preliminary schematic design and start transitioning into the PCB layout phase.