The laser cut case parts actually arrived quite a while ago now, but the PCBs have arrived this morning.

Laser Cut Case

The great people at RazorLab managed to cut and deliver my parts in just a few days. A really good service and I am amazed to see that it actually fits together properly! I just need to file down 1 edge but that was part of the initial design.

Not bad for a first try! Laser cut by the great people at http://www.razorlab.co.uk/

PIDuino case showing the engraving on the front.

The Printed Circuit Boards

I was originally going to go with a cheap PCB from china, but decided that I would prefer a higher quality board so went with OSH Park and I am very glad I did. The quality of the boards is excellent and the colour looks great too. Seeing as they are made on a shared panel it didn’t take as long as I thought for them to arrive. I ordered on the 29th July and they arrived today so took around 3.5 weeks.

Of course I have made the obligatory error on the board though it should be ok to fix. I connected to the wrong power supply to the 4050 chip so rather than converting the logic from +5v to +3v it just goes from +5v to +5v Doh! Hopefully I can put in a nice piece of bodge wire to reroute this connection and solve the problem

Front and back of the boards

Putting it together

I have also tested the fit of the board into the pre cut holes in the bottom part of the case and it fits too. I am now just hoping my standoffs are tall enough to support the battery holder on the bottom of the board.

The PCB holes line up almost perfectly with the laser cut case!

Whats Next?

Now it just leaves me to build up a board and start writing some of the software. I have written some of the UI stuff already and have previously implemented a PID for the Arduino for controlling a slow cooker so it should all start coming together quite quickly now.