Electronics, custom boards, signal and sensors

Context

This entry gathers my electronics work. The main piece is the board of my Illumine lamp, with charging through a magnetic connector, a lithium battery and several lighting modes. The rest comes from lab sessions in my studies.

What I did

• A charging circuit with input protection, a lithium controller in TSSOP-8 and a two-color status LED.
• A transistor stage to drive the LEDs in several modes.
• SMD routing with wide tracks for VBUS and a ground plane, checked in 3D and by DRC.
• The same flow in Altium Designer then KiCad, to compare.
• In lab sessions, I built circuits on a breadboard, measured with an oscilloscope, did bench bring-up and wired sensors to an Arduino.

What I noticed and learned

• Altium offers an integrated environment, KiCad the flexibility of open source.
• I learned to link signal theory to a real measurement.

My mistakes

• I cannot yet show the manufactured and tested board. That step will validate the design.

Results

• A complete Illumine board (schematic, footprints, routing, DRC), ready for manufacturing.
• One design carried out in two reference tools.

Tech stack