This is a big milestone in the Crazy Fast RC Car project. The PCB actually works!! There is not a single thing that I messed up on it! I am baffled by the fact that this board works the way it does considering it is only the first revision. We can count this on the numerous times I checked the wires and the connections on the board in Eagle before I got it fabbed, it all paid off.
I must say that I got very close to making a colossal mistake on this board when I was designing it. As you know, there are two LDO regulators on the board, one for the 5V bus, and the other for the 3V3 bus. For the 5V bus, I am using a beefier version of a LS7805 with the same pinout. For the 3V3 regulator, I had originally purchased an LM1117. However, I thought that LM1117 had the same pinout as the LS7805 regulator. It turns out that GND and VOUT are swapped, so this gave me a momentary heart attack when I found out. I thought I would have to fix this and have to get a new revision of the board fabbed, but I was very lucky to find that NTE1904 (which is a 3.3V regulator) has the same pinout as a LS7805. So I ordered one and soldered it on the board and it worked.
I am still waiting on the dual row female headers I purchased 3 weeks ago. I was being cheap and decided to order from China, not knowing it would take this long. I am getting pretty impatient, but once it arrives, I will solder that on the board and have a chance to test all of the functionality of the board. Namely, I still need to make sure my wiring and the voltage divider I made is working as I planned for the optical sensor. You will see in the video that the remote controller device is still on a breadboard. Once I finish up the Main RC Car board, I will start working on a PCB design for the remote controller also.
Go ahead and watch the video below:
