Thank you Luke I'm glad you like what I created from your design.LukeZ wrote:Hi Rick, I'm very impressed. You went from a self-confessed novice to a professional circuit board designer in very little time! And now you absolutely do have something you made yourself which is very cool.
I'm interested in the green and red connectors on your final design. If I had to guess it looks like you've provided convenient power taps to your two drive ESCs (green), and I guess the two reds are one for the battery and a second for powering other stuff?
As you mentioned there have been several other users who have made up their own designs and it's always interesting to watch as each one takes a slightly different approach. I very much like what you have done, it is clear to me you put a lot of thought into what you needed and what could be let go. Some features have been left off, but what remains probably does 100% of what 90% of users would ever want, and in exchange you have gained something easy to assemble, small, and I'm guessing also inexpensive; all worthy advantages.
My hat's off to you, and I'll look forward to seeing it in your next project. (I just checked out your Brummbar by the way, it's fantastic!)
Luke
And yes the colour coded connectors are an idea I got from a cheap barrel smoker set we're the different connectors we're coloured.
The 2 red ones and the 2 green ones are all connected to the battery I added a second battery connector to provide a supply to the BEC that powers the cannon smoke unit and like you worked out the green ones for the battery supply to the Esc's hopefully doing away with some spaghetti in the finished model.
The connectors for the smoke unit and auxiliary output (used for the fan) are in blue. I put mosfets for these as I had seen them used for the outputs on other boards when a higher output was needed as a novice I'm not sure if this is correct but seeing as they are supplying a resistor and motor it makes sense to be over rated.
I am thinking of getting another of the Aurdino boards and fitting double header connectors so it can be fitted on the TCB with the ability to have a second board fitted on top of it that can have a version of the OP sound board fitted or IR battle capability to make it even more versatile.
I still have no clue how any of the components work but I am interested to see what I can achieve.