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Project Notes

#176 nRF24Breakout

A simple PCB breadboard adapter for 8-pin nRF24 modules

Build

Notes

This is my version of project 1 from the KiCad like a Pro course from Tech Explorations.

It’s about as simple as it gets - my main objective here is to try out the process of sending PCB design to a small-quantity production fab. I got interested in doing this after seeing this hangout with the founder of OSH Park.

The PCB design was done with KiCad.

I sent these off for production at OSH Park, and they arrived (in Singapore) a month later (Jan 17th -> Feb 17th). They turned out quite well, certainly no issues with the fab. I’ll be using these for some nRF24 projects.

After examining the PCBs, I can see a few things that could be improved in the design:

  • the font size I used for pin labelling is just barely large enough to read
  • I didn’t allow space between the 2x4 pin header and the pin labels (with the pin adapter installed, the labels are partially obscured)
  • the board size does not match the nRF24 unit very well (the module overlaps the edge of the board). I think the module might be better rotated 90˚.

See nRF24/PingPong, my first shot at using the adapters for real. They worked great!

Construction

See the KiCad project for all the details. Here’s the result:

The Schematic

PCB

PCB render

Build

Credits and References

About LEAP#176 nRF24PCB

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LEAP GitHub repository.

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About LEAP

LEAP is my personal collection of electronics projects - usually involving an Arduino or other microprocessor in one way or another. Some are full-blown projects, while many are trivial breadboard experiments, intended to learn and explore something interesting.

Projects are often inspired by things found wild on the net, or ideas from the many great electronics podcasts and YouTube channels. Feel free to borrow liberally, and if you spot any issues do let me know or send a pull-request.

NOTE: For a while I included various scale modelling projects here too, but I've now split them off into a new repository: check out LittleModelArt if you are looking for these projects.

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