HeaterMeter v5.0 Development


 
I spent a bunch of time talking to domestic board houses today and yesterday. Nobody does plated slots as part of their standard service. :( Heck I can't even get non-plated drills as part of the standard service!
 
Stupid question I guess but my test board from velleman has a headphone jack with slotted legs that just went into plated round holes. It soldered up just fine.

Wouldn't that be an option?
 
The heatermeter's jacks are the same, slots into holes. The issue at hand is the pin layout as well as the width of the legs on the jack.
 
I've been pretty quiet about this because the first set of boards was a real disappointment and I hadn't had time to figure out why.
-- First board (of the three) had a short in it somewhere and I didn't realize until it was fully built. I removed piece by piece until it was back to a bare board and it is still shorted. This still needs further investigation to see if I have built a board with traces too close or something that will have a high likelyhood of failure.
-- Triple level design made the lcd a little wobbly
-- High noise levels on the ADC, slightly worse than 4.2.4 despite being designed to be quieter.
-- Wrong button footprint so had to use 6mm buttons to fit, should be 12mm
-- Thermocouple didn't work right at low temps (room temp)
-- A bunch of minor stuff easy to fix

I have been working out the ADC problems and fixed the thermocouple problem when all of a sudden... board no longer starts up. Like it has power everywhere it is supposed to, but doesn't seem to come on and start working. The board is a mess with parts, and wires, and test leads soldered all over it so I am going to have to start removing that see if I can figure out why. With the LCD board connected there's something seriously wrong because the current use goes up to ~50mA and the FLIR shows that a trace under the buzzer is getting hot I think. It is hard to tell exactly what is happening.

So in summary 5.0 is still a ways off because there's at least two more iterations after all the problems are solved and the problems will take an unknown amount of time to fix.
 
Funny the $9 CHIP computer was the topic here in the HM5 thread, because I popped in to read what was going on and suggest that perhaps since the rPi Model B seems to be recirculating recently perhaps it would be wise to wait for the CHIP computer to come out and move in that direction with the HMv5.

TBHWY the HMv4.2 is a really excellent board (hats off to Bryan for hitting it out of the park on that one!), so as long as the rPi B is still available I see no rush on HM5 unless it is to add new features or move over to something like the CHIP computer. There have been a bunch of these little mini computer boards released but this one seems to be very suited to the HM project. Not only does it replace the rPi, SD card and WiFi dongle for $9 it could open up bigger possibilities on the software and hardware end of things too...
 
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