Cumulative Design Review

Manta Ray Keyboard

Manta Ray Keyboard

by Anubhav Raina -
Number of replies: 8

This is a 5-switch keyboard, with a rotary encoder and a display. The board is shaped like a manta ray.

Thanks :D

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In reply to Anubhav Raina

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Mark Hughes -
Hi Anubhav! Hopefully someone will chime in here pretty quick. I'll ping discord.

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In reply to Anubhav Raina

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Seb Dangerfield -
Hi Anubhav,

I really like the design, very cool and I like the artwork. Looking at the design in tracespace I noticed you have component part numbers in the drill file, I'm not sure if this expected but I didn't on my design. Not sure if this will cause a problem or just get ignored. Another thing which again may be fine is the spacing between R4 - R12, might be a little tricky to hand solder, but someone with more experience hand soldering SMD components can probably comment.

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In reply to Seb Dangerfield

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Anubhav Raina -
Thanks for the feedback.

I'm not really worried about R4-12, I chose a smaller footprint since I intend to short them to ground anyways. If I can't solder, I'll just bridge the pads.

The component part numbers are on the Fab layers, I don't know if these layers are required. Tracespace shows them as drill layers for some reason.

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In reply to Anubhav Raina

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Jesse Robinson -
You have way too many files in your gerbers, I think your board houses will confuse them, this is all you need:
F.Silks
F.Mask
F.Cu
B.Cu
B.Mask
B.Silks
Edge.Cuts which contains the board outline.
In1.Cu and In2.Cu are also needed for 4 layer designs.
NCDrill (1 or 2 files)
This guide explains it more:
https://docs.oshpark.com/design-tools/kicad/generating-kicad-gerbers/

Good looking board, just a couple of notes
J1 - if soldered it will make the pico not lay flat
LCD Screen silk has REF** in it, you can click edit and make sure the ref des isn't showing
FPC Connector - I hop you are good at soldering, that looks like a nightmare!, also your ground connections seem a little weird, the top and bottom ground are only connecting to the pour on one side (the right side has a sliver opening between them) and I'd remove the vertical trace, you have enough of a ground connection left and right and that will just add thermal mass
There's lots of places where you have a "T" connection on top of a via (like R27/R28, that is not recommended because a wandering drill can disconnect one side, better would be a "T" on the trace, you can also do the pad its going to but those can pull up with heat and force so if you are reworking you could break the connection, better to "T" on the trace
You might be able to get rid of some of your traces by making a power plane (3.3V or 5V) on your front copper
A couple of places you have your via pretty close to the pad, like SWDIO and GP6, if you have vias that are open (instead of tented) you could get solder thieving down them, I'd move them a little bit away so you have guaranteed solder mask coverage between the pin and the via
USB C - this is tricky to solder as well but do-able, I'd just triple check your pinout as you won't be able to program the Pico without that header or a modified cable because the clearance from your board to the Picos onboard USB

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In reply to Jesse Robinson

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Anubhav Raina -
Understood, I'll only keep the necessary layers.

J1 won't be soldered. I'll just put the headers on the debug idc cable and insert them whenever I need to debug the board.
LCD Silk screen - done.
FPC connector - I have a decent soldering iron, average soldering skills and 2 of those connectors.
FPC connector ground pins - They don't connect with the default clearance of 0.508mm, if I change it to 0.254mm everything connects. The vertical line is also added as a part of the fill zone operation.
T connected vias - done
open vias - done
Power planes - I thought power planes were a big no-no. I was considering filling the top layer with ground as well. I'm not very confident about the ground/power planes usage.
USBC - done

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In reply to Anubhav Raina

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Jesse Robinson -
Sorry haven't gotten back to this, power planes are not a no go. It's just usually more helpful, at least from a signal point of view, to have two internal ground planes if you have components on both sides. If you have a good ground plane on the bottom of a two layer, no reason you can't make your top plane a power plane to alleviate some routing. One negative is you might get complacent and have have some non ideal paths of you aren't hand routing them.

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In reply to Anubhav Raina

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Andrew Ferguson -
Very creative design! Love the QR code (I'm just glad it wasn't a link to https://rr.noordstar.me/mantakeeb-dc7df7fd).

Some things I noted:

  • On the files, you included the Fab, Courtyard, Eco1, Eco2, and Drawing layers, which you don't need to do when you submit to the PCB manufacturer (usually).
  • R4-R12 might be a little bit close to each other if you plan on hand soldering. If you haven't already, I'd suggest you print out a paper doll: https://discord.com/channels/897249680306618368/916892368534392852/919292113567481896
  • The R19, R31, R33, R35, R37 silkscreen probably won't print (or will be partial) since there's a hole there...suggest you move the designator to a different location.
  • C2 and the GP27 silkscreen are on top of each other. Just move C2 to the left side.
  • R3 looks like there might be an extra paste pad. I don't think this would affect the manufacturing of the PCB, but would impact solder paste stencil if you were to have one of those made.
  • Just want to confirm R23-R28 won't interfere with whatever you have there...I'm not sure what the outline is for.
  • Is the cutout for a display? If so, are you using an FPC connector or soldering directly to the board? If you are using a connector, I ended up changing my connector from a Molex with 0.4mm leads to an Amphenol with 1.0mm leads to make it easier to solder. It's still going to be a challenge and I think I might use solder paste and a heatgun.
Great idea to have the ALT codes for letters! A very handy reference!

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In reply to Andrew Ferguson

Re: Manta Ray Keyboard

by Anubhav Raina -
Thanks and you got me with that link!

- Yes, I'll be removing the extra layers.
- I printed out a paper doll, but that's giving me all sorts of different problems. For R4-R12, if I can't solder them I'll bridge them.
- done, thanks I completely forgot about that.
- R23-R28 is to select the interface for the LCD (parallel-serial-endianess). I'll only solder a single side, so it should be easy.
- Yes the cutout is for a display, the flex cable from the display will bend backwards and go through the cutout to the connector. Unfortunately I could only find this connector (but at least I got 2 of them)

:D

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