Making things

I love making things. Tonight I made this thing:

It's a twin ROM switcher, or rather 2 twin ROM switchers, one of which is destined for a C64. JiffyDOS enhanced kernal in one side, regular kernal ROM in the other. SPDT switch added to the pads with a common centre and it's cake time! I'll post a minimal entry when it's looking a little more complete.

I've been making PCBs for a few months now and I'm getting to the stage where I need to start investing in some beginner++ equipment. I have a ghetto UV exposure box that some kind soul freecycled a few years back. It just about does the job but it only has one tube and that makes getting an even exposure hard. You can see on this board that one side is either overexposed, overdeveloped, overunderdeveloped or underoverexposed. Or something. I'll never know, I guess. I suppose seeing that the traces have disappeared then either the negative wasn't pressed closely enough to the PCB or it was overexposed. Reviewing what I did this evening I find it hard to see how I could overexpose one edge like that. That is the mystery and marvel of this process - you have to aim for a zen-like approach otherwise it will end in tears.

Still I think it'll work. I designed this mainly so that I could try out the new PCB material that I sourced. It's a lot cheaper than the usual gear that I score . Even with my relatively inexperienced dabbling I know I have to get a feel for how it reacts to the chemicals. See? Zen again. The design has a lot of traces weaving through the space between pads. It scared me a little while I was eagling it. Ha but now who's the daddy eh?!

Anyway now I've rambled and the board appears to have dried of natural causes I'm off to drill it. Super!