Context
This entry gathers my electronics work rather than a single project. The images come from different settings but share the same thread, understanding and mastering a full electronics chain, from the component to the measurement. The most complete part is personal. It is the board of my Illumine lamp (which I also designed and 3D-printed), for which I wanted custom electronics, with clean charging over a magnetic connector, lithium battery management and several lighting modes. The rest comes from practical lab work and hands-on experiments during my studies, in analog and digital electronics, signal processing and sensors.
Approach / Solution
Board design (Illumine lamp). For charging, the VBUS input comes through a magnetic charging connector, with input protection (SS14 Schottky diode), a lithium charge controller in a TSSOP-8 package whose current is set by a programming resistor (Rprog), and a red/green bicolour LED for charge status, all decoupled with 10 µF capacitors. For the LEDs, a transistor stage (Q1-Q4) drives them and enables several modes (on/off, dimming). Routing meant placing the SMD components, running wide traces for VBUS, adding a ground plane and suitable footprints (TSSOP, SMA, 0402/0603), all checked in 3D and through a design-rule check (DRC) before freezing the design. I ran this flow in Altium Designer then KiCad to compare the two ecosystems, Altium's integrated richness against KiCad's open-source flexibility. Hands-on work and measurements. Alongside the design work, I practised electronics hands-on. I built and tested analog and digital circuits on a breadboard, observed signals on an oscilloscope (for instance a filter's response to a square-wave input), brought up a board on the bench with a Rohde & Schwarz oscilloscope, and acquired physical sensors on Arduino (a range of modules, distance, light, sound). All chances to tie signal theory to real measurements.
Results
On the Illumine board, a complete and coherent design, with a clear schematic, correct footprints, verified routing and 3D view, ready for manufacturing. This project ties together, for me, the mechanical side (the 3D-printed lamp) and the electronics (its power and control board). More broadly, this work made me comfortable across the whole electronics chain, from selecting and sizing components to schematic capture, place-and-route and DRC on two industry-standard tools (Altium, KiCad), as well as reading signals on an oscilloscope, quick prototyping and sensor acquisition. It is that versatility, from design to measurement, that I am working to consolidate.