Today, I borrowed my friends bike to go down to the sorting office (6 and a half miles there and back!) and picked up my PCB’s that have arrived from Hong Kong!

As per usual, I’m really happy at the quality from ITead studio and would happily recommend them to anybody wanting to get PCB’s done.

So! I had a go at soldering it up, it was all going great until I got to the STM32F100C4T6B microcontroller! Having never soldered anything this fine pitch before, I was a tad apprehensive and unfortunately it didn’t work successfully first time. Fortunate enough, I’ve got enough components for a couple of boards and after purchasing a new microcontroller IC from RS, I’ll be able to go and pick it up tomorrow. For those who want a quick sneak peak, I’ll include some pics!

Even I will admit that it currently isn’t the most attractive looking device as of yet but for the first prototype, its not terrible! As more and more thought goes into the project, I’m thinking of better additions and revisions all together. One of such so far is replacing the tactile switches for capacitive touch switches in their place.