I would like help with any ideas that might be out there.
I would like it to run though and test a PCB and have an LCD display with it telling me testing step 1 pass or fail then go on to the next step.
Need more details to start. What's on the board? What's the connection to the board? How many signals? Digital or Analog or both?
I don't know yet would like input on what would be the best way to go i would like it to communicate with a PC if i can so i can see where the problem is. I am doing this for a capstone project so i don't want to take on more than need be.
Thank you to anyone that can help me with this.
I am doing this for a capstone project so i don't want to take on more than need be
English, please.
I am doing this for school class project with two other people
Ok, so start with a USB/Serial adapter for a PC interface.
What else will it do?
Right now we are thinking something kind of simple. we are going to be building a test fixture unit that we would put the PCB in plug it in and set it to do a set of test's. when it passes the 1st one have the LCD display say something like test 1 pass and then go on too the next test and so on... As far as what the board does doesn't really matter two much after we get it working i would maybe like to scale it up to maybe work on PC boards for troubleshooting. other than that kind of open to ideas i have about 5 week's give or take to build it and troubleshoot it giving me room to work with.
Ok, so put an Uno in a box with an I2C interface LCD display and the USB going out to a PC.
Then you have 18 IO to connect to your test board:
D2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17
D0, D1 committed to serial comms to PC
A4/A5 aka D18/D19 committed to I2C, can have I2C out to the test board as well.
Add power from 3.3V wallwart, 5V wallwart, 9V wallwart, whatever for your test board.
Add signal buffering as needed, 3 or 4 cd74hc4050 for digital signals
Maybe something similar for analog signals:
MCP3208 for 8 channels of 12-bit ADC
and four MCP4922 for 8 channels of 12-bit DAC
Thank you Cross Roads for your help. I understand most of what you said though this will be my first time using an arduino.
Would you be able to point me in the right way on the coding end of it. If you could that would be a great help to me. I have done some programming in C++, and i do have the sketch pad for the arduino on my laptop already.
?? Code it to do what? I imagine the coding would be pretty specific to the board you are testing.
I will have to get back to you on that one. One of my other teammates have the circuit boards that we might be using or i might have to build/buy one. Though i was thinking with starting it out with checking the rail voltages than going on to checking different parts of the circuit board. when i have more info on the circuit board i will let you know.
Thank you again for all your help
ok we are going to make up are own test points. using the arduino uno or maybe the mega 2560 we would like to use the 2.8" TFT Touch shield to show to start are testing and show the output for each test as pass or fail. we are going to look if there is voltage at different test points to start. than at one of the other test points we want it to show testing complete all tests pass or show what test failed.