One of my past PCB projects is the "pxlBlck_multiPCB". As the name suggests this PCB is the heart of several future pxlBlck variants.
So far I have used the Wemos D1 Mini Board with the ESP8266 installed on it as the main MCU for many projects. The circuit is supplied via a micro USB port. Unfortunately this forces to reduce the power consumption to max. 2,5W. The brightness of the connected LED matrices must therefore be reduced by software.
To get around this problem (among others) I developed the pxlBlck_multiPCB. It not only has a USB-C port (which can draw up to 15W) but also a lot of other practical components.
- ESP32 Wrover-B
- DS3232M RTC
- USB-C port incl. programming option of the installed ESP32
- BME280 Climate Sensor
- Micro SD card slot
- TSL2591 Brightness sensor
- MPR121 Touch sensor for up to 12 touch electrodes
- MAX98357 3W I2S DAC
- ADXL345 Accelerometer
- IR LED
- QWIIC-I2C expansion port
- 10×10 SK6812 LED matrix (on the front side of the board)
I bought the board from the board manufacturer PCBWay.com which has provided me with these free of charge. At this point, thank you again for the great service and cooperation 🙂.
In the following you can see a few pictures of the finished board and (almost) all possible components. Unfortunately, some sensors such as the BME280 are very expensive or poorly available due to the current chip shortage, which is why I have not installed it.
Safety instructions
I know the following notes are always kind of annoying and seem unnecessary. Unfortunately, many people who knew "better" have lost eyes, fingers or other things due to carelessness or injured themselves. Data loss is almost negligible in comparison, but even these can be really annoying. Therefore, please take five minutes to read the safety instructions. Because even the coolest project is not worth injury or other trouble.
https://www.nerdiy.de/sicherheitshinweise/
Affiliate links/advertising links
The links to online shops listed here are so-called affiliate links. If you click on such an affiliate link and make a purchase via this link, Nerdiy.de will receive a commission from the relevant online shop or provider. The price does not change for you. If you make your purchases via these links, you support Nerdiy.de in being able to offer other useful projects in the future. 🙂
Requirements
For the assembly you have to master SMD soldering tasks. The following articles contain tips for this.
- Electronics - My friend the soldering iron
- Electronics – Solder THT components by hand
- Electronics – Solder SMD components by hand
Required tool:
PCB ManufacturingAll infos you need for the production of the PCBs can be found here:
The structure
In the past you have often seen individual pictures here showing which component belongs where.
An even better way to get an overview of which components belong where on the PCB is shown in the following paragraph. Thanks to the work of OpenScope Project you can now generate very helpful HTML files in which you can see directly which components belong where on the PCB.
You can see the overview for the pxlBlck_multiPCB here: pxlBlck_multiPCB
The current file can also be found in the Git repository at the following link:
https://github.com/Nerdiyde/pxlBlck/tree/main/PCB
(Please note that you have to download the HTML file to view it. Directly from the Git repository this is not possible).
Have fun with the project
I hope everything worked as described for you. If not or you have questions or suggestions please let me know in the comments. I will then add this to the article if necessary.
Ideas for new projects are always welcome. 🙂
PS Many of these projects - especially the hardware projects - cost a lot of time and money. Of course I do this because I enjoy it, but if you think it's cool that I share the information with you, I would be happy about a small donation to the coffee fund. 🙂
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