Battery Free, USB Powered LED Torch

Step 5 Layout Sketch

So I've claimed that this would be USB powered - but where's a USB connector? While looking around for a male type A PCB connector, I thought it'd be pretty cool to copy those "integrated plug" connector used on mini SD type cards.

I looked up the USB specification here, which is a fairly boring document. The specification though shows that the contacts on a male connector are 1mm wide, with about 2.5mm between them, and the carrier is 2mm thick. Hmmm... pretty much the same dimensions as the strips on the veroboard. Awesome.

Doing a quick test showed that but cutting a section of four strips, and inserting it into a USB port, I got 5V on the two out rails. Bam.

I'm not a massive fan of veroboard, because I think you have to spend too much timecutting traces and installing jumpers. I prefer to use matrix board where each pad is isolated, but the USB-compatability is too convienient here.

Using the schematic I layed out the components on a peice of board. Because the bottom terminal of the capacitor is exposed, I'm putting some of the jumpers on the underside.

Here is my combined layout/circuit board sketch. Dotted components on other side. I tried various vero/stripboard CAD software, but nothing worked the way I liked. Any suggestions - let me know in the comments.

Comments

[evil_paul]

Hey mate, here's just the thing for drawing up veroboard layouts. I tried to find a link to it, but it seems to have disappeared from the web, so I uploaded it here.