This week, I completed the schematic and layout for our PCB. I resolved several issues with the PCB including fixing one of the LED button footprints to allow me to control the LED for the button via microcontroller GPIO. I placed and routed the PCB, uploaded the files to JLCPCB, ordered the PCB, and received confirmation from Quinn regarding the PCB order. The PCB should be arriving by the middle of this week. The back half of this week was dedicated to testing Nick’s GPIO code. All connections are still on the breadboard. There were some issues with getting the Daisy Seed to connect with Nick’s computer, so he created a Github to track test .cpp files that I pasted into my editor and downloaded onto the micirocontroller. His code successfully interacts with the 4-mode switch and is very close to working with the 7-segment display (on segment of led not working). Nick has implemented a timer-controlled flashing feature that flashes rapidly between all characters of the display, giving it the effect of all characters displaying at once, which he and I were able to verify was displaying. The button code seems to not be working likely due to the way they are being initialized. Nick has updated the code, and I will be testing it this weekend.
For my portion of the project, verification will come in the form of PCB validation. This means ensuring that once soldered, the code that we have found to work with the breadboard prototype will also work with the I/O components on the PCB board. Due to the uncertain nature of the PCB board, there is a slight possibility that the board malfunctions due to certain faulty connections. Due to this possibility, I am dedicating the beginning of this next week to building the same breadboard prototype on devboards where we can solder the components and wire components. This will serve as a backup to ensure that the user can properly interact with our pedal. Further testing will involve measuring currents and voltages along all GPIO pins to ensure that the proper current is supplied to I/O components. In my PCB, I have placed surface mount components to serve as current-limiting devices, but this is still important to avoid breaking components close to demo day.
In relation to our timeline, I think my portion of the project is coming together fine. The biggest issue would be if the PCB is not working as desired, in which case we might have to pivot to the dev board soldering for the specific components that have faulty connections. After getting the switch and 7-segment displays to work at the end of last week, I am more confident that the hardware components of the project will be finished in time. I will also need to potentially add hardware for the input and output audio, but I should be able to figure that out by the end of this week. The window is getting narrower, but I still feel that we can get a solid pedal in the end.