Designed: September 2009 by Antonios Theodosiou. Published: 25.Nov.2010 by Vassilis Serasidis .
The source code was written in AVR C language.
IntroTired of spending hours and hours in wire soldering? Do your circuits look ugly and you are looking for a way to produce professional-like PCBs? Then you had better try photoetching. And the first step to do that is to have the right equipment that is an Automated Exposure Box. Moreover if you like tinkering with microcontrollers, here is the challenge and it's high time you launched the design of your own PCB Exposure Box. In the following lines I describe theprocedure I followed to build the Box, the Lamp System and the Countdown System which is based on the AVR mega8 microcontroller.
Brief DescriptionFour blacklight lamps, 15W each, emit radiation at the region of UVA, with a peak around 350nm where the thin surface above the copper of the photosensitive board, is... sensitive. The lamps are taken by two and are connected in series thus shaping two similar modules. Each module has its own ballast and can be connected to 220V AC via a relay. A microcontroller counts a user defined countdown and upon reaching zero activates a relay. The time remaining is displayed on four 7-segment led displays. The maximum countdown is 99 minutes and 59 secs. The desired countdown is entered using only two buttons, SET and START/STOP. Short term push of the SET button will increase the current digit while prolonged push will change the digit from secondss to decades of seconds, to minutes and so on. Pushing once the START/STOP button, will make the MCU accept the desired countdown. Pushing the START/STOP button one more time, will start the countdown and connect the lamp system to 220V AC, via the relay. If START/STOP button is pushed again before countdown reaches zero, the lamp system will be deactivated. When the countdown reaches zero the lamp system is deactivated and a 3 seconds beep is sounded. The timer remembers the last used countdown and uses it as default every time the system is switched on. All things above are housed in a wooden box. You can design the box by yourself however I had it done by a technician. There are 3 distinctive parts that constitute your PCB Exposure Box; the Box the Lamp System and the Counter System along with the display.
The BoxYou are gonna need a wooden box with dimensions aproximately 50x30x60 cm3. The box must have an extra room for hosting the countdown board and the two ballasts. The height of that room, that is the distance between the bottom of the box and the shelf, can be 5-8 cm. On the one side of the shelf will be installed the four starter bases and on the other side the four lamps along with their G13 bases.
The Lamp SystemFor the lamp system you will need:
(approx. cost 10/lamp)
(ex 22W starters approx. cost 0.5/starter)
(approx. cost < 0.2/base)
As for the construction details, I put thelamps and the starters on the two sides of the wooden shelf and the two ballasts on the bottom of the box.
Second,on the other side of the shelf, I screwed the eight G13 lamp holders, having first, drilled the holes needed by the wires to join the lamp bases with the starter bases.
The Countdown TimerThis is the most amusing part of the story. Here you have to deal with Software and Hardware.
As for the Software part I wrote the code in C using the winAVR and avr-gcc plugin along with avrStudio. Using ProteusVSM I tested the code in simulation environment which saved me a lot of effort and time. Then I downloaded the hex code to the chip with the STK500. I strongly recommend that you try and writethe code by yourself so I don't attach any code here except for the tmrAVR.hex. If you need any help about the code, please mail me at aetheod@hotmail.com.
The schematic of the main unit which contains the microcontroller and the power supply isYou 'll be needing the following components
Similarly the led board schematic
So, after ensuring everything was right it was time to design my last wire-soldered circuit! I started from the led board
and thecorresponding main unit
Connecting the modules together
Putting all together...So far so good! Everything works fine and it is time to enclose the Lamp System and the Countdown System in the Box. A general diagram helps to identify the place of each module
PCB_Exposure_BoxPCB_Exposure_Box
Published by Vassilis Serasidis at 25.Nov.2010
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