I think most low-end projects done in KiCad are not tested beyond making sure there's no red squiggly underlines at a glance. You are your own F5 key and assembler/runtime crash reporter. Proper circuit verification through software simulation isn't needed for most digital designs unless you do your own wireless antenna, analog amps, and/or DRAM/PCIe/GbE/etc.
I guess in theory, the original question is whether this project allows a board to be sent of for construction at a company that makes and populates boards. Yes, you could do this if you wanted to. As numpad0 has said though, it's early days for these boards and if you wanted to do something commercially reliable, you will most likely run into issues with things not being completely tested on these boards yet.
These boards provide the ability to make your own boards to host the chipsets yourself, rather than relying on a third party providing the board. So what? What if you want USB-C? What if you want to make a square or a circular board? This project is a good step along the way to allowing you to make these kinds of things.
On the hobbyist and corporate side, they also provide a way to provide a modern design that can use USB-C, which is becoming very common and is better than older USB options.
As mentioned in the README.md "Available Development Boards" section, the Atmega16u2 chip was hard to come by for Hanqaqa in 2023. The Arduino guys (arduino.com ?) probably did a "lifetime buy" of these comms chips and they probably also have several shelves of fully built Arduino boards as well. Lifetime buys and keeping good stock levels mitigate the risk of difficulty building new boards... Just get one of the older working ones off the shelf and send it. However, for an organisation (even an open source board that becomes fairly popular) wanting to build their own board, not having a given comms chip is a problem. Replacing it with a commonly available one makes it much easier for people/companies wanting to build these boards in any kind of numbers.
Having the board design readily available is really useful for the reasons above. It does seem like overkill if you just want to fiddle with a board, but if you make something that becomes popular that needs any kind of hardware adjustment, having the design becomes almost essential.
Wonderful that there's a Free version of these designs out there. The bugs and kinks will get sorted out over time.
Sure I am willing to learn but I need a more efficient path than a complete EE degree. I guess you can get quite far with a reference design but I understood that there's a lot to learn about ground layers, trace widths and so on.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44549063
Note that the audio in the first video doesn't start until 40 seconds in.
I got them a 3d printer to move them into more "physical" computing, with mixed results.
Any place to have a gentle introduction to PCB boards?
I like to suggest making a macropad, then a keyboard, then going into a devboard, and then starting to make your own projects. But for kids that aren't quite in highschool yet, it can feel quite intimidating and the learning curve is moderately high, so getting them playing with breadboards first might be the best option ;)
Hack Club will also give you a grant to cover the entire cost if your kids are over 13 through their programs like stasis, fallout, or forge (you can check their site for more info)
Your blog is great, btw! I expect more great things from you!
I especially enjoyed your repo on your custom keyboard. My kids are crazy about keyboards. If you taught I class I would definitely sign them up!
Have many spares of all components (including breakout boards) handy - they will probably summon the magic smoke a few times.
They will likely quickly need to learn how to read data sheets. You can often get away with copying the "typical application" and avoiding the real technical stuff.
Friendly reminder: those brains are still developing. Adequate exhaust is extremely important (even if you are using solder-free, flux fumes are varying levels of toxic). You want those fumes going out of the window, not via a filter into the same room. Any complaints about headaches are serious: you aren't extracting the fumes correctly. There are a few important things to know about soldering: "there is no such thing as too much flux," "solder likes to flow towards heat," and "heat the thing and apply the solder to the thing (not to the iron)" (to keep the technique at its most basic).
The often recommended Hakko FX-888D is just plain awful. The Pinecil is way better (yes, even though its a fraction of the price) or the TS100/TS101.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadboard [2]: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
https://www.reddit.com/r/soldering/comments/1le2y4l/comment/...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/is-the-hakko-fx-888d... (#7)
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/qcofiq/comm...
https://www.reddit.com/r/soldering/comments/1282gci/comment/...
It was maybe the best at the price tier 10 years ago, but smart tips make things much more predictable. The FX-888D is dated and suggesting it is bad advice; you overcame its shortcomings while learning and years later are left with "the good parts." Try do something with it when it reports that it's at temperature, bonus points for changing the calibration by mistake or straight into a large copper pour. Smart tips have a much more forgiving learning curve, and then the user might subsequently have more success with something like the FX-888D.
I personally ran into this when starting out, not knowing what I was doing wrong for literal months - until I got the Pinecil, which was night and day.
I just don't know why anyone would suggest something that's "good enough" over something that's genuinely good.
I'm a huge fan of the (now kind of old) version 1 Pinecil irons I have.
If someone put me at a bench to work on a project, I'd be very happy with either of these soldering irons. Both the FX-88 and the Pinecil are miles and miles ahead of the low-power, not-temperature-controlled soldering irons I used when I was a kid.
(I do want to buy a v2 Pinecil, since that can run directly on the 24v-nominal batteries that I use for everything from my power tools to my lawn mower. That would allow for very portable soldering using stuff I already have. v2 tips also have a lower resistance and that provides a bit more oomph at any given voltage, but lack of oomph hasn't been an issue for me at all with v1.)
The MCU is typically far more fiddly than the devices (eg. crystals, storage, buses with conditioning, power stages, etc.), so continuing to plug the MCU in to a PCB while integrating peripherals is a good. You really need to be able to read a datasheet to do a nontrivial board and that brings in quite a few elements of electronics which are nontrivial for kids to grok without hand-holding and a lot of explanation.
Pick an MCU with easy USB-C programming. RP2040 is a good modern option.
In some cases, when their PCB fab layer stack up is similar enough to the original board, they can go a step further and copy paste most of the PCB into their design so that any signal integrity work carries over. Realistically this is only really practical for low speed designs but still useful for a whole class of electronics.
I don’t use KiCad but software like Altium support modular schematic sheets and PCB rooms so theoretically it can imported into that (since KiCad’s format is open source S-expr)
Especially if you're able to replace certain small/passive components with those you already have in bulk, it could be a potential cost cutting measure.
Just a guess though.
For my case, they'd be useful if I wanted to know how certain subcircuits are designed or laid out.
Even for beginners, taking it into kicad, enabling the selection of only tracks and vias and deleting them all, then doing a full re-layout of the board as practice would be a cool project if you're wanting to learn.