Hi all,
I have this rather ambitious first project in the works (ambitions for a person of my more modest skill level at least). I was hoping to get some opinions on my design in Eagle. I might find this to be a huge mistake in the future but I tried to do the whole thing in one go instead of coming here and asking for each and every part of it first. Instead I have what I hope is a final product and this is what it is:
- 3.3V regulated by ultra-low dropout LDO
- ATMEGA328P at 8MHz
- LiPo powered
- Battery charging IC from USB (MAX1811)
- Micro-USB
- FTDI USB->UART
- HC-05 bluetooth Serial Port Profile module (from ebay)
- Really small PCB size (~50mm x ~20mm)
- Low profile ~7mm? (eyeballing it; height of microusb + height of ftdi + PCB thickness)
I attached the Eagle files and the Gerbers in the zip file (in case someone who wants to look at it doesn't use Eagle). In addition, I have already had it fabbed by SeeedStudio's Fusion PCB service (which is awesomely cheap I must say; for someone just starting out it's nice to not burn a hole in my pocket only to find out later that this kinda thing isn't for me). I have every part I need except the 10uF caps right now and have populated everything I could. So far the power rail seems to be working well but without the caps I dare not go any further for now.
What I'm looking for are any mistakes I may have made, improvements I can make (on my Eagle design, software suggestions, bluetooth device ideas, etc). I have extra boards in case someone decides they want one. They come with 2 panelized on a 50x50mm board one with ground planes and the other without. The BOM is not particularly cheap but since this is for a University project I managed to get the majority of important components on sample orders.
Lastly, this is one of my few experiences on a forum and my first on this one in particular so feel free to take a shot at me if this post is in the wrong place.
PS. I am open to making this a commercial thing if ever it comes to that.
Lemme know how I did with this first project of it's kind for me.
Edit: I should also note that this is a 3.3V LDO version. I am in the process of replacing the (rather large) LDO for a switching power supply to bring it to a 5V rail.