Source for boards

[lanman1]

You can try using https://www.pcbway.com/ I have used them before, they are inexpensive and have a rewards system. The quality is excellent and I usually get a free gift when I order boards. 10 boards are $15 shipped to the US.

Hope this helps and thank you for your work.

[lanman1]

one thing I notice when I upload the Gerbers, it looks like pads and not thru-hole. This may just be their render.

[hallard]

That is strange, uploaded zip file to oshpark and looks nice

Anyway last time I tried pcbway for an already done board by someone else it told me I needed to wait until manual verification from pcbway team, so I gave up, may be need to try again.

[lanman1]

Yeah, there usually i a manual verification where a human looks at it to make sure it is ok. Usually takes less than a day. I've ordered from them probably 10 times but maybe that aren't as good for EU. I'll probably go ahead and place an order and report back, 10 boards through them are cheaper than the 3 for Oshpark. I could be doing something wrong tho :)

[bogd]

@lanman1 - I used jlcpcb, and their system did show the drill holes correctly. And, indeed, when I received the boards, they did have the correct holes drilled.

I have also uploaded the current version of the gerbers.zip in this repo to the jlcpcb system, and once again it shows the drill holes correctly:

However, the exact same file viewed in pcbway's viewer does not show the drill holes:

It looks like a limitation of the pcbway gerbers viewer.... (and an ugly one, at that :) )

[lanman1]

I'll give jlcpcb a shot, thanks!

[vortigont]

I've got my batch from cnospcb and those are just fine. Thanks to @hallard for making his work public, it is much more comfortable to use shields than messing with dangling jump wires :)

[M10CUBE]

Thanks @hallard for the grate V1.9 design. I got my lot of PCBs. Now trying to lit the RGB display but having problems with the display (16x32) found in my lab with the HUB75 connector. It has only A and B signal rows with C and D pins are grounded. So I see confusing images. While I am waiting a new RGB from China is any example to guide me how to position text and display simple numbers or text? The examples do not have similar software. The RGB will be used to display environmental data for our project https://hackaday.io/project/171770-m10cube Thanks a lot

[EclipseBoom]

Here is a tip I swiped from SmartMatrix for Teensy. If you use a 20-way female dual row connector on the bottom of the HUB75 interface and clip off the extra 2 pins on each end, the connector will fit snugly into the IDC cable socket on the panel with no chance to get the connector offset like it can with a 16-way female header.

Also, if you don't put female headers on the Wemos board it is much lower profile and can almost fit within the plastic frames of the panel itself. Just solder the ESP32 unit onto the HUB75 interface with some dual row pins and clip off the extra long pins on one side. Can't come loose that way either.

Finally I like to use the JST/Molex in a Right-Angle connector to supply 5V to the ESP32 HUB75 board. This allows the typical 2-plug panel power cable to connect one JST to the panel and the second JST to the HUB board leaving the fork terminals for the power supply. Nice and clean with no extra cables required for a single panel configuration.

Also not really an issue. There is not really any way I can use the touch button and I don't need the LDR so those GPIO could be used for other things. I would like to see the extra GPIO gathered into a header to connect remote buttons and controls and so forth away from behind the panel.

[M10CUBE]

Here is a tip I swiped from SmartMatrix for Teensy. If you use a 20-way female dual row connector on the bottom of the HUB75 interface and clip off the extra 2 pins on each end, the connector will fit snugly into the IDC cable socket on the panel with no chance to get the connector offset like it can with a 16-way female header.

Also, if you don't put female headers on the Wemos board it is much lower profile and can almost fit within the plastic frames of the panel itself. Just solder the ESP32 unit onto the HUB75 interface with some dual row pins and clip off the extra long pins on one side. Can't come loose that way either.

Finally I like to use the JST/Molex in a Right-Angle connector to supply 5V to the ESP32 HUB75 board. This allows the typical 2-plug panel power cable to connect one JST to the panel and the second JST to the HUB board leaving the fork terminals for the power supply. Nice and clean with no extra cables required for a single panel configuration.

@EclipseBoom can you be specific on that? do you have pictures? For mine (first image) I choose to use long 2x20 socket for the HUB75 connector and for the ESP32 to sit on. I like to see yours but with images if you can find some time. That will help to integrate your ideas .

Now the P3-6432-21-16S-D1 RGB display I got is working fine (first image) The problem is with a second P4 RGB display the S-P4-3020-A3 display (second image) I have and is not working. Just flashing in a strange way. This is a similar one: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32514844235.html It has the TC7258EN (8-channel LED display line scanning blanking control driver) and MBI5124 (16 Channel Constant Current LED Driver). Any idea who to make that work? Is the same driver? I will appreciate any ideas. Thanks a lot in advance

[EclipseBoom]

Here is my low-profile configuration. I mount the panels to a 12mm high Aluminum channel and this fits under that.

[M10CUBE]

Ok I see your idea. Looks nice. Your panels must be different than mine. Thank you

[Yaxit]

@EclipseBoom could you point me to the connector you used for the screen power (white one with 2 5V and 2GND)? I cannot find the one I want :D

[EclipseBoom]

That connector is JST-VH series. S4P-VH(LF)(SN) Bought at Digikey.

There is a Molex one that fits too but it has little nubs on the bottom of the plastic that need to be cut off and more expensive.

[Yaxit]

Thank you. Would be nice to have it in the board BOM along the rest.

[crazy-weasel]

Hi, I ordered a few v1.9 PCBs via jlcpcb and now I have more than I need. :)

If anyone needs some, I could send them to you. Shipping within the EU should be reasonable if you want only one or two (or three..)

[glen020]

Hey, Got my pcb's working flawlessly thank you! Question, what part numbers do you have for the Power connectors? I cant seem to find the 4 pin ones or the exact ones @EclipseBoom

[EclipseBoom]

Hey, Got my pcb's working flawlessly thank you! Question, what part numbers do you have for the Power connectors? I cant seem to find the 4 pin ones or the exact ones @EclipseBoom

JST VH series From Digikey: Mfr # S4P-VH Digikey #: 455-S4P-VH-ND

I like these because they work with the power connector cable that comes with the panels. Just use the fork end to the P.S. and the two VH connectors go one to the panel and one to the ESP32 shield. Super clean.

[EclipseBoom]

@hallard I'm prepared to get these PCBs fabricated in quantity and continuously stock them through my robotpower.com business for easy access by everyone without needing to hassle with the Gerber files or getting 3x minimum from OSH Park or waiting 2-3 weeks for the PCB panel to process. I would sell them for approximately the cost of an OSH order each i.e. ~$6.20 USD. But I would need to charge a little for handling plus postage of course. I'm thinking about $10 USD delivered for 1x bare PCB inside the US would cover it. However the CC BY-NC license doesn't seem compatible with this scheme. I think I would need the CC BY-ND or SA license

I would also like to offer kits and to assemble them for makers who don't want to source parts and/or do soldering but just want to get to making their cool project. This would cost extra of course for the labor.

I sent and email to the Github owner address but no reply so far.

[hallard]

@EclipseBoom, glad to see you would like to provide it in you shop. I'm the owner of this github repo but did not received any email, would you mind try to send it again so we can continue this discussion in PM please? Thanks Charles

[EclipseBoom]

Sent email to hallard04@free.fr which is your github home page email contact address. Is there a different one?

You can contact me at chris _at__ robotpower.com

[EclipseBoom]

resent email to above address

[hallard]

Can't receive your email, just wrote to your mail from another one