Schematic to breadboard layout

OK, starting from Chewie original circuit.fzz above do the following to correct the sketch:

In breadboard we see that the neo pixel 30m strip is connected wrong (the wires don’t match). As well this is the broken part pcb
doesn’t work and the labels are wrong. So I have created a new part that corrects the errors in the original (and the one that I
fixed earlier). Now you need to replace the current one (in all your sketches, not just this one!) with the new part. To do so:

1. Open the sketch Chewie original circuit.fzz in Fritzing

2. in breadboard view select the neo pixel part and right click it. Then click Delete Minus (not Delete but Delete Minus) this deletes the part but leaves the wires.

3. In the mine parts bin right click on the neo pixel part and click remove part. Answer yes to the do you really want to remove this part prompt.

4. Exit Fritzing and answer save to all the dialogs that come up (you want to save the removal of the broken part so it won’t be present anymore).

5. Restart Fritzing and reload the sketch. There should be no neo pixel in any of the views and no neo pixel in the mine parts bin if the above has completed correctly.

6. File-open and load Neopixel_Strip_White_30_m.fzpz which is the new part. The neo pixel part should appear in the mine parts bin.

7. Drag the new part in to breadboard view and move the wires til the connections are made. Check the connections are correct by moving the new part a couple of spaces to the right, if the 3 wires expand to folow the part the connections are correct and breadboard is done.

8. Change to schematic view.The new part is misaligned and has rats nest lines leading to it. Select the part and move it to the correct position then right click the part and click lock part to lock it.

9. Delete the 3 wires that should connect to the neo pixel to leave only the rats nest lines.

10. Click on each rat nest line and move the mouse a bit. This will cause the wire to be created to the connection point. Now click on the bend points on the wire and move them to the correct position.

11. Once all the wires are correctly placed left click on each of the 3 neo pixel connections and verify all the connections light up yellow.

12)Now switch to pcb view and move the neo pixel part (which will be off the board somewhere) to a clear area on the pcb and routing should then work and drc will pass.

At this point save the sketch as a working checkpoint file. I would suggest either moving the old files to a different directory or deleting them so you don’t use an old sketch with the bad part in it. You now need to do this same thing to all your sketches to make a new set of sketches that have the correct part in them to use going forward. With the drc problem fixed, now a few comments on potential issues with your pcb layout as it stands (again these refer to the Chewie original circuit.fzz sketch)

1. The layout is compact which is good for board cost but has some issues you may not have considered. Assuming this is supposed to fit in a rectangular case, unless the sides of the case are plates (which is not common with standard enclosures) you will not be able to get the jacks in to the holes in the box unless they are recessed a bit (which will look somewhat odd I expect).

2. Presumably the mega will mount to the bottom of the board via header pins. As it stands, the top of the mega will connect to the bottom of your pcb, depending on how high the components on the mega are you may need long header pins. It may make sense to rotate the mega by 180 degrees in horizontal. That would mean the solder side of the mega would face the solder side of your pcb (and the mega pins will be swapped on your pcb which is why you need to decide if you want to do this first as it will effect board routing).

3. The optoisolator chip appears to overlap the neopixel ring outline which is likely to mean that you can’t correctly mount both components at once. You may need to increase you board size a bit to create more space. You may need to do that anyway as you may not have enough space to route all the traces you need with acceptable spacing.

4. I would spread out r1up . in and r10 down .1 in to make more space for traces and even spaceing. I would rotate r27 180 degrees as that makes the routing (shown by the rats nest lines) easier and move it right a bit for better clearance.

5. I would remove one of the capacitors (and perhaps double the capacitance of the other to make up for it) to save some space.

6. R29 (and several others) is set to 300 mil spacing rather than 400. This is likely due to making a change in inspector which has a tendency to change other values in ways you don’t expect by accident (the diode is 5 mil spacing and should probably be 3 mil for instance).

7. The neo pixel ring looks to overlap the header connectors for the mega. You need to make sure that the pins on the header will not short on something on the neo pixel ring (or preferably move them so they don’t overlap!).

8. There is no space where you could put mounting holes for screws to fasten the pcb to the enclosure. You may or may not need them, but you need to consider how you will mount the pcb.
   It is possible some of the other folks will have more suggestions on pcb layout as I don’t do pcbs all that often. Here is the corrected neo pixel part which you should replace in all sketches:

Neopixel_Strip_White_30_m.fzpz (18.8 KB)

Peter