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| PCB without the screen |
All of the component were hand soldered by me. However I ran into quite a bit of an issue with the smaller chips especially the 14 LGA package of the accelerometer. Knowing that most surface mount component footprints were created to be used in a re-flow oven or soldered by machine, I purposely chose slightly wider footprints to cater for hand soldering (can especially be seen with the crystal).
Not knowing the real size of the LGA footprint, it came out as impossible to solder using a soldering iron. Luckily for me, my university had a hot air soldering station which I could use. After a few burnt out chips and burnt fingers, I managed to finally solder the accelerometer and to my surprise, it worked even though I might have heated it up too long.
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| With the screen |
The final product looks a bit messy and I probably could've made it more compact, but then again that would've been a pain to hand solder.
The current image displayed is the main menu of the pedometer and the little marine pops up in random locations over the screen.
I still have a lot of work to do with regards to the software and looking at it now, using an atmega328p might've restricted me in terms of computational power quite a lot. On the plus side, its forcing me to write super efficient code which might be useful in the future.
I'm also considering adding a 3d printed case in the future but I first have to learn how to use some sort of autoCAD software.
