Final Assembly Board?

Hi,

I don’t know where this topic might belong and I appreciate it if it can be moved to an appropriate forum if not this one.

I am building a stepper motor control system (Arduino + A4988) for a special purpose and once I have tried its ultimate possibilities for my project, I would like to move the project from the breadboard and mount it permanently and neatly on another board that is already pre-wired to properly connect the seat on which the controller sits and the seat on which the driver will be sitting, and then the whole thing will be boxed and screwed onto something.

Does anyone have a suggestion on what the best way to go about this is?

And my project should be ready pretty soon.

Thanks in advance.

Hello.

I have moved your question to the “Electronics” section of the forum.

Moving your project from a solderless breadboard to a more permanent solution can be done in many ways. You might consider using perma-proto boards, which are internally connected like on a breadboard, but allow you to solder through-hole components onto the board. If you are interested in this, you might look through our “Prototyping PCBs” category to see if we carry one that is the right size and fit for your project. Also, if you wanted to make your A4988 carrier removable/replaceable, you can solder female headers into the proto-boards to make a socket for it.

For an even more customized and permanent solution, you might consider designing a PCB that your other boards can attach to, and using a service such as OSH Park to get it manufactured.

-Brandon

Brandon, the perma-proto boards may work for me (and I have one already) but there is a lot of wiring in between the A4988 and the Arduino Micro that I am connecting together to run a motor. There are things like capacitors and switches too. A custom board would be the best.

It looks like the board manufacturers and parts places use software like Eagle that are pretty powerful and very complicated to learn and use. Is there a simple program that you can suggest that can be useful with online manufacturers?

I basically want to have a PCB built that is prewired for the components that I will be soldering onto it. There is no design involved.

Thanks.

I have not used it myself, but another engineer here suggested ExpressPCB, which is a free design tool that claims to be easy to learn. However, I do not know if you can get the fabrication files from it to send to a different company to manufacture or if it is proprietary and you have to go through them. A quick Internet search brings up a lot of other results, but since I do not have experience with many of them, I am not sure how powerful or easy to use they are.

-Brandon

Brandon,

Since I wrote to you I have tried many different programs and am now fully committed to Eagle CAD. It is the best, and not too hard to learn.

Thanks for the input.

Farzad

Go through instructables.com/id/How-to- … per-Motor/
It should help