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Let's create a PCB for OLEDs


FantomXR

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Hi!

 

Thanks for checking!

It seems I made a mistake in the PCB-Layout. The GND plane is not connected to every GND-pin because it got cutted by the mounting holes. Anyway! I was able to make it work with a few modifications. I will add those to the PCB and after that I will publish the finished PCB.

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

Okay... I kicked this idea. It's really too much work to get this working.

So I created something else. This is a simple breakout-board, which can be used with the core directly (pay attention of the voltage-selector). Every output of this breakout goes to another little PCB, that is stacked directly behind the OLED. This PCB contains a resistor and a cap... currently THT, but will be SMD in the next version I think. 

 

OLED_Breakout_8pin.sch

OLED_Breakout_8pin.brd

OLED_Breakout_Displayboard.brd

OLED_Breakout_Displayboard.sch

OLED_Breakout.jpg

OLED_PCB.jpg

OLED_PCB2.jpg

OLED_working.jpg

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Interesting approach, what is the intermediate board between the Core and IDC6 connectors?

The core is designed by myself and normaly has no parts for LCDs on it. The intermediate board contains all parts for the LCDs (J15A/B, 74HC595, potentiometer, etc.). This is because I wanted the core to be as small as possible and I don't need displays for every build :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hmm, 

I still think there's some merit in this, for example with a single PCB and 4 displays (e.g. MBCV) you could get away with 4 standoffs and simpler wiring/less POR circuitry etc.

Did you consider FPC/FFC sockets? A quick search revealed that all of these are SMT but the metal pins are more amenable to solder than the flat cable. 0.5mm pitch correct? Tricky but doable.

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Hmm, 

I still think there's some merit in this, for example with a single PCB and 4 displays (e.g. MBCV) you could get away with 4 standoffs and simpler wiring/less POR circuitry etc.

You can of course easily adopt my breakout-board to fit four displays instead of just one. 

Did you consider FPC/FFC sockets? A quick search revealed that all of these are SMT but the metal pins are more amenable to solder than the flat cable. 0.5mm pitch correct? Tricky but doable.

No, it's not 0,5mm, which is the problem. It's 0,7mm and I wasn't able to find a fitting socket. 

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  • 3 months later...

Bringing this thread back because I'm interested in a PCB like this. AND... I might be in a position to have some made, including SMT components and LCD's soldered on (or maybe connected with flex sockets). My father has been in the electronics manufacturing industry for 30+ years and I'll be visiting him in the next few weeks. I'm going to discuss what it would cost to manufacture something like this in California. Depending on the result of that discussion and if there's enough interest I may be able to do a group order. 

Hey FantomXR, how close did you get with your design? I'm curious what issues you ran into and why you opted for the breakout board solution?

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Hey,

my design worked! I didn't have any problems with it.
But: It's very hard to solder flex-cables by hand (as there are no sockets which have the same pin number than the displays). That's why I decided to spend a few bucks more and use displays with pinheader and created a breakout solution.

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I personally won't rule out offering some sort of breakout PCB in the future. But at the moment the SIP 7-pin SPI-ready displays can be had for around $7 each (or less). Their width means that you go over the magical 100mm dimension if you want to stack more than 4 side by side. In a minute I'll upload my concept for MBCV v2 which puts the display pins on the control surface PCB. So maybe it's a good idea to just integrate into dedicated projects?

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You are totally right. But by using my breakout-PCB and the little display-adapters you will save a lot of soldering. Of course it doesn't make sense to use this kind of connection if you are just looking for one or two displays for your midibox. But if you need 8 or more, this will make things a lot easier. 

Anyway: My PCBs can be downloaded and manufactured by any PCB manufacture out there if someone is interested in using this. I uploaded the layouts a few posts above.

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On February 7, 2016 at 9:26 PM, FantomXR said:

As far as I know I have no 1pc-board. Only for 8pc. 

And I don't believe you will be under $6 p.pc. if you do the PCBs by yourself including the OLED and don't forget about the soldering...

Oops, I mean the files for the single board with 8 OLEDs. And yes, the manufacturer would solder the OLED's on. It's a turnkey shop that could do all or a portion of the manufacturing.

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