PortaLED Budget Edition

Using the spare time I had today I partially assembled a PortaLED PCB, as I had all the parts on hand. This time, I put in a one ohm resistor for the current sense resistor instead of 0.3 ohms to reduce the drive current to make the circuit work with the tiny inductor (which actually had a saturation current of 250mA, while my original design wanted to run at 630mA; I only noted the current rating of 1.9A). I didn't put in the microcontroller and tied the enable pin high. I also didn't put in the battery/USB switchover MOSFET/diode combination out of laziness. I just wanted to test to see if the circuit would work as a basic light and if there was really nothing too wrong about my design from before.

Mostly soldered board.

And it did work!

Assembled.

Stacked boards to form a case.

Plenty bright enough at this drive current. Charger works fine, just don't have it plugged in when on.

This one photo refused to be uploaded by Google Photos.
Not sure why I only get partially uploaded.

Box

After nearly five years, I've finally gotten around to making a box for the electronics for my (crappy) CNC. I spent the last week on and off designing and building it.

I used Fusion 360 for the CAD and CAM, and relearned the limitations of my CNC's rigidity.

CAD model.

During milling it took me a little while to figure out why the end mill kept descending during the cutting process; the coupler for the z-axis was loose and causing retractions to not pull back fully. After tightening it was fine.

A second pass created deeper grooves due to the z-axis slowly falling.

A better look at the bad grooves.
You can also see where the end mill dragged through the piece between drills.

However, the biggest problem was the lack of rigidity. I think it is mostly from the wood plate and clamp for the router, but I know the entire machine is kinda shady. All the hexagons in the back plate were round and all the holes and slots for the connectors and walls were all undersized. I had to go back into the CAD and oversize all the slots, and just manually drilled out/filed the rest of the holes bigger.

All undersized. :(

Soldering outside in a light drizzle.

Connectors for the motors.
Finally used them after buying them five years ago.

Electronics mounted.

The lid was just the original piece of wood I had the electronics temporarily attached to before.

Box! Much neater now.

I may plan to put a fan on the top lid to help with ventilation if it actually becomes too warm.