Starting off the week, I wrapped up some code for the robotic arm. The aim was to make sure that the OLED Screen would work, and that the information displayed would be beneficial to anyone using the controller in the event that I am not around to help with use of the arm.
I also wanted to get the OLED monitor working due to the Freshman Night we had in the Vocational School on Wednesday. It was amazing to get to meet the freshmen in our shop and show off what I've been working on. Below was the display I had up for the night, showing off the circuit board for the arm, along with having the CAD and PCB for my light box open on Fusion 360.
The rest of the week has been mostly filled with work on my light box, specifically the insides of the box. Starting off, my main priority was to get the circuit board cut and soldered.
The PCB cut fairly well, however we did have an issue in which we accidentally used a 1/64" bit instead of a 1/32" bit and ended up with bigger traces and smaller holes, so we had to swap the tool and redo the cut. I'm still very upset about wasting copper on a bad cut.
I'm super happy with how the new board looks though, and in comparison to its predecessor, it uses much less material and wastes way less space. It's nearly half the size, along with having a more box-like shape to it, which means that there wasn't any weird gap left on the copper we used.
The inside of the box is also getting a revamp, and while its fairly similar to the original box, I'm trying to cut down on material use and still keep the box functional, but my own lack of deviation from the design of the original box is fairly disappointing to me, but I'm more concerned about getting a working product out than style at the moment.
The box's dimensions (LWH) is 4 x 3 x 2 inches, which is considerably smaller than my 6 x 4 x 3.5 box from before.
That's all for this week. Looking forward to (hopefully) sharing a completed product next week!