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Step 3Description and details
Crimp the female connector pins with the wires of the 9V battery clip. You can use polarized headers instead if you want to avoid connecting the power in the wrong way. I didn't used polarized headers because I didn't have any at hand and the diode is there for reverse voltage protection.
The test loops are a great idea that I shamelessly plugged from the Robot Room. These are simply a loop of copper wire between two nearby holes. Note that my test loops are a bit ugly because I forgot to pre-tin them before soldering them to the PCB. By the time I realized that I forgot, I had already tape the PCB to the battery and I didn't want to remove it, hence the ugly tinning. Remember to pre-tin yours!
The test loops are great for clipping on with alligator clips or hooked on with test hooks/clips.
I used a single-sided copper board, so there was no way to have test pads on the top side. Even if I were to use a double-sided copper board, I'd need a way to connect the bottom layer to the top layer. The problem is, I don't like vias made with soldering a wire between the two layers, it's ugly. My solution was to use SIL sockets. SIL stands for Single In-Line for those of you who don't know. These are similar to machine-tooled IC sockets, but instead of two rows, there's only one.
The sockets are like normal headers in that you can break or cut off a row with as many pins as you want. Simply break/cut off 3 1-pin sockets (one for each test pad). Then break/cut off the plastic holder to reveal conductive part. Note that the pin has four diameters. Cut away the narrowest end. The next most narrow end will be inserted into your PCB, so your hole and copper pad will need to enlarged.
The sockets provide a nice pit to poke the pointy tips of your multimeter probes into. It's not suppose to fit, but helps keep the probes from sliding around. You can also insert wires in and maybe hook it up to your microcontroller's ADC port.
The magnetic SMD adapter is connected to the tester via an IC socket. You'll have to use the normal version IC sockets for this as male headers will not fit into machine-tooled IC sockets. Just split an 8-pin IC socket and solder on to the PCB. You can go one step further like I did and file away all the little protrusions before soldering so that everything sits nice and flat. If you do this, you will inevitably be filing away a tiny portion of the conductive part which doesn't do much harm. The header pins on the adapter were intentionally shortened so that it completely fits into the socket. This makes the header lie flush against the socket with no gap in between, producing a nicer look and lower overall profile.
Check this Instructable for a guide on making the magnetic SMD adapter.
The test loops are a great idea that I shamelessly plugged from the Robot Room. These are simply a loop of copper wire between two nearby holes. Note that my test loops are a bit ugly because I forgot to pre-tin them before soldering them to the PCB. By the time I realized that I forgot, I had already tape the PCB to the battery and I didn't want to remove it, hence the ugly tinning. Remember to pre-tin yours!
The test loops are great for clipping on with alligator clips or hooked on with test hooks/clips.
I used a single-sided copper board, so there was no way to have test pads on the top side. Even if I were to use a double-sided copper board, I'd need a way to connect the bottom layer to the top layer. The problem is, I don't like vias made with soldering a wire between the two layers, it's ugly. My solution was to use SIL sockets. SIL stands for Single In-Line for those of you who don't know. These are similar to machine-tooled IC sockets, but instead of two rows, there's only one.
The sockets are like normal headers in that you can break or cut off a row with as many pins as you want. Simply break/cut off 3 1-pin sockets (one for each test pad). Then break/cut off the plastic holder to reveal conductive part. Note that the pin has four diameters. Cut away the narrowest end. The next most narrow end will be inserted into your PCB, so your hole and copper pad will need to enlarged.
The sockets provide a nice pit to poke the pointy tips of your multimeter probes into. It's not suppose to fit, but helps keep the probes from sliding around. You can also insert wires in and maybe hook it up to your microcontroller's ADC port.
The magnetic SMD adapter is connected to the tester via an IC socket. You'll have to use the normal version IC sockets for this as male headers will not fit into machine-tooled IC sockets. Just split an 8-pin IC socket and solder on to the PCB. You can go one step further like I did and file away all the little protrusions before soldering so that everything sits nice and flat. If you do this, you will inevitably be filing away a tiny portion of the conductive part which doesn't do much harm. The header pins on the adapter were intentionally shortened so that it completely fits into the socket. This makes the header lie flush against the socket with no gap in between, producing a nicer look and lower overall profile.
Check this Instructable for a guide on making the magnetic SMD adapter.
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