Printed-Circuit-Board Showcase

Printed circuit boards are in almost every modern tech device, and you can create your own! Simply download KiCad, develop and design the board, send it to JLCPCB, and a week and half later, you have your custom PCB. In this article, I will showcase my custom PCBs.

PCB One: Sonic Sensitivity

This PCB is for a communication device enabling deaf users to engage in voice-to-text conversations with others, utilizing speech recognition. Since Sonic Sensitivity uses an IC and not a ready-made circuit board, I needed to create a custom circuit board. I used KiCad for the design and JLCPCB, based out of China, for fabrication. A tutorial for KiCad EDA can be found on my dashboard. Furthermore, the overall design has three different parts: the ATmega328 setup circuit, the TOLED connections, and the VR module circuit.

PCB Two: Sleep Apnea Detection Device

SADD is a device that tracks, records, and alerts users to instances of potential sleep apnea via audio, visual, and vibrational systems. The circuit board isn't exactly how everything ended up being soldered on. In addition to changing certain pins around, I had to get rid of the voltage divider and parts of the transistor circuit. Overall, this is a semi-accurate model of my circuit board. The idea is that it connects all the components together to the IC and makes the device miniature.

PCB Three: Stealthy Infrared Human Proximity Movement Module

This device is a concealed stealth gadget that senses movement of any object that gives off IR radiation, i.e. humans, animals, etc, and blinks rapidly. This circuit board I developed has a minute 11mm radius, making it just about the size of the tip of your thumb. This board features a power input and output and tracks that connect all of the components to VCC, GND, and the ATtiny85.

PCB Four: ATtiny85 Light Alarm

This device wakes you up in the morning to a custom audio alarm. It's a simple audio alarm that responds to intensities of light for cheap. With a width of only 17mm, this alarm clock is quite miniature and cheap. The circuit board in general just connects each component to the ATtiny85 and to the power input and output. I designed it using KiCad.

PCB Five: ATtiny85 Temperature Alarm

This device is a temperature alarm. It blinks an LED for a certain temperature range, and at a higher, more dangerous, temperature range, it blinks another LED more rapidly. The PCB is small and versatile. It connects the ATtiny85 to a voltage divider between a thermistor, a temperature-dependent resistor, and 1k resistor.

Going Further

Check out my personal website for projects like the one you see above