Never quite finished?!

The good news is I now have the "proper" PCBs for my door controller and NFC reader...

I have to say they look good - proper boards, and using solder paste and oven means a very professional result.

PCB Train do a nice job, but these were on a three week lead time. Both boards work. However, in the three weeks since I ordered I have made a few design changes.

The door controller changes are very minor - instead of 3 inputs with 3 GND on the 6 pin connector I have all 6 pins connected to GPIO, where you drive some pins to GND if you want. This allows a lot more options if needed, etc. The pins all have BAV99S and 100Ω for some ESP protection, and 33pF to help reduce noise. It is a small change, and so the existing boards are more than usable. The only snag is I mis-ordered as 1.6mm not 0.8mm boards, and I have designed cases to be as small as I can to fit in a back box. I think 1.6mm will still fit, but it is annoying.

The bigger issue is the NFC board. As I say, they work. But the tuning is perhaps not spot on. The newer design boards have a loop both sides, allowing the board to be 40mm x 40mm not 42mm x 42mm. However, the newest boards are better - the main thing is they do not get hot which is a big clue (i.e. the antenna is clearly better and easier to tune), and I have them working with more range. So I would rather use the new boards. They too are also 0.8mm which saves space.

So, all in all, I decided to order some new boards - two week lead time. However I have a few dozen of these boards. As I say, they work, and I am testing with them, and may well use some, but once I get the replacements I will end up throwing these away, I am sure, which is a shame.

So, if a hackspace, or other good cause, wants either of these bare boards, to play with. The schematics and code are all on GitHub. Note, need hot air gun at least for the PN532, and fine tipped soldering iron. Let me know. Email me at pcb1@revk.uk

Long term?

These, and some other related modules, should be able to make a WiFi mesh with (not having to be always on-line) "cloud" control and management (on or off site) to work as an alarm and access system.