Brads Electronic Projects Forum

brad wrote:74595's are a great chip, I used them on my DigiPixel board and I am in the process of designing a board for work with a bunch of LED's on it.

Yes indeed, the 74595 is a very handy chip if you want more outputs. I used them in one of my last projects also to drive led's
Matrix Shield

brad wrote:

Use 'em for even hundreds of output bits:
http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/pot ... #22_SR_OUT

Wow, you have loads of great tips on that page!

Thanks. I have quite a bit more to add when time allows.

I have already designed another version of the board, this time it supports 3.3v and 5v microchips (18F4550.18F4553,18F46J50,18F47J50)

Well done bitfogav

Is there some sort of jumper that you use to select between 3.3v and 5v?

brad wrote:Well done bitfogav

Is there some sort of jumper that you use to select between 3.3v and 5v?

Yes indeed, it's pretty much a cheap way by using some solder surface pads this only changes the power supply to the main chip, you still have 5v and 3.3v on the headers.

Made my own solder pads in Diptrace:

That reminds me of the Amiga 500 motherboards. They had similar solder pads that you would short together depending on (I think) what specific chips you had installed.

After a few versions of the board I think the board is almost finished (depending on testing).. Over the weekend I have built up the 4 versions of the board (18F4550.18F4553,18F46J50,18F47J50) Here is a sneak look at the boards

The red boards are definitely my favourite. Nice choice - they have come up just perfectly bitfogav.

Now it looks as though you've got yourself a home made reflow oven, how is that controlled? is there any problem with the sensing element coming desoldered in there?

brad wrote:The red boards are definitely my favourite. Nice choice - they have come up just perfectly bitfogav.

Now it looks as though you've got yourself a home made reflow oven, how is that controlled? is there any problem with the sensing element coming desoldered in there?

The red boards do look great I do have a reflow oven at home, I brought it nearly 2 years ago and it's been well worth it!.. I enjoy watching the solder paste reflow and all the components self a line.. No problems with the sensing element because it's just a Thermocouple type temperature sensor which I just attach to a piece of pcb board..

The reflow oven was one of the cheapest I could find and the controller is one that you can interface with using a PC (RS232), it's really great for adjusting the correct oven temperatures, to get the correct reflow.. If you want to check out the reflow oven and controller then the links are below.

Beta-Layout Reflow oven
Beta-Layout Reflow oven controller

Also I did find out that David also uses the same reflow controller as myself (for the Firewing boards), and he has put together a fantastic graphical user interface (GUI). check it out here.

I love it that RS232 is still in use today, it's certainly easier (in my opinion) to interface to microcontroller devices compared to USB.


I bought one a few years ago swell although the glass panel is so small that you can't really see anything - I wanted to see the solder flowing and aligning all the components!

I just saw it was 3 months since I posted on this topic last, well time flies!!. I have been on and off this project and others since and I have just received some really nice black boards

Looking very sharp there bitfogav!

Speaking of black boards, here's an older style that I remember from school