I have this project which is a smart watch with an epaper screen. I am having some difficulties finding the right one. I want a 1.54 inch epaper display with capacitive touch and (if possible, but not needed) a backlight.
Thank you for your reply! Yes I saw that one, but I think it may be too big, it is already larger then the epaper display itself, I would like a connector which is no bigger or smaller then the display. Is there not some sort of FPC to wire connector without PCB?
Hello! I have this idea of a smartwatch I would like to make. The thing is I’m feeling a bit lost because if I wanted to make a practical watch I can’t just use an Arduino nano, since they’re a little too big.
So I’m guessing I would have to make a PCB for it… I don’t know how to make a PCB. Or how to make electrical diagrams and circuits.
If anyone knows a website to learn how to make a PCB, or some automatic PCB maker then that would be great! Any info would help.
I'm an engineer (and a hobbyist) and I wouldn't attempt to build a smart watch. The smaller you make something, the harder it gets. In production, the tiny surface mount components in a watch or phone (or almost anything else) are placed & soldered robotically. Again, "not easy" for a hobbyist.
Bluetooth (or other wireless) is very tricky and it requires expensive equipment for tweaking/testing/troubleshooting.
I tried a couple of PCB design applications and I ended-up choosing DesignSpark. The free version doesn't have any "artificial limitations" that would affect me. I wouldn't mind paying for the software, but I don't want to pay a monthly or yearly subscription and I don't want to pay thousands of dollars!
There is "auto routing", where you place the components on the board and the software adds the connections (traces & vias). The DesignSpark auto-routing made a "messy" design and I didn't use it.
I had the bare boards manufactured by Seeed Studio. There are other similar companies and they all farm-out the production to China. I can get 10-20 small boards for about $100 USD and that includes about $30 for DHL shipping. It takes about 2-weeks to the U.S.
I assembled/soldered the boards myself. My boards are through-hole. I avoided surface mount.
P.S.
I've worked in electronics for many years (not as a PCB designer) and I've NEVER seen a board come-back perfect the first time. I've done two computer-designed hobby-boards, and they both took two tries. I tried to be perfect and I double-checked so I didn't think I'd made any mistakes and I was hopeful. They were also rather simple boards. But from what I've seen in industry I wasn't THAT surprised. So you should be mentally and financially prepared to go-through at least one revision.
if you want to learn about PCB design, you should pick a lower target to get started with (Kicad has a good intro tutorial but still requires some knowledge about electronics )
if you want to actually play with a programmable watch form factor and not design one, then look at LILYGO TTGO T-Watch for example
Ttgo sells an ESP watch.
Nice to play with. But short battery life (needs to be charged at least every 2 days).
Programming is already quite a challenge...
I have opened it up. All is realy realy tiny... I would say challenging for a pro...
I have not used any PCB design program, but my late company built thousands of circuit boards for various companies and engineers. So I have to ask will the free programs do multi-layer boards? Will the free programs do the tiny devices necessary for a "watch"? And will the free programs do the necessary fine traces necessary for watch sized products?
KiCad is capable of creating printed circuit boards with up to 32 copper layers, 14 technical layers (silkscreen, solder mask, component adhesive, solder paste, etc), and 13 general-purpose drawing layers.
The internal measurement resolution of all objects in KiCad is 1 nanometer, and measurements are stored as 32-bit integers. This means it is possible to create boards up to approximately 4 meters by 4 meters.
That is good information. Thanks! Now the question for the OP is to find a board house that can build the prototypes. I had one engineer customer that had a client paying for the design of a pocket sized, hand held, laser range finder device suitable for golfers. He started with reasonable board and we built a newer, smaller set about once a year. Eventually he got so small we could not populate the boards and Sunstone Circuits had to farm out the boards because the trace pitch was too fine. Last example he found a company in Denver to populate his boards for 10X what we charged. I think that was the end of the line for the experiment.