Manufacturing rc2usb Module

Photo Etching method was available, so this is how it happened:

Print out a stencil for the pcb.

Expose the pcb with the stencil to the UV light.

Etch it in acid.

Clean thoroughly!

Plate it and clean thoroughly again.

Cut and drill.

Congratulations, it's a circuit board. Now all it takes now is a bag of components and some soldering.

All done! Both chips respond back, which means the board is now ready for the software development part.

Designing rc2usb Module

Studying the solutions out there, for connecting an RC controller to the computer, a design for an RC receiver was devised.

A custom board, based on the ATmega328 (because most of the reference material is based on Arduino, they are really cheap right now and I already have a programmer for Atmel chips). With the newly released FT230X for serial over USB (because, let's try something new).

As such it should be able to read up to 8 channels from the RC receiver, with two connectors for servo testing. One with pass trough from channel 8 to manually control the servo, and one wired to the micro controller which will periodically  turn it left and right (useful to quickly test a servo with no RC controller or power supply for it near by).

FT230X part of the schematic

ATmega328 part of the schematic:

PCB design of the rc2usb board.

Well, this is the theory any way! Will it work as designed? only time will tell.

P. S. There is a tiny mistake on the schematics: capacitors C9 & C10 should be 47pF not 100nF. Damn you Copy & Paste!