Project Completed

I’ve finished the project.

It wasn’t difficult, and since I’m the one paying for it myself, I don’t need to add anything extra besides the essentials.

All that’s left is the BOM, which will appear on GitHub, as well as the README.md and the project files—but those are just standard additions.

Overall, a nice and easy project.

Journal — PCB Routing

Journal — PCB Routing

After finishing the schematic, I moved on to routing the PCB.

I started by placing all the components on the board.

There weren’t many of them, so arranging everything took me only about 15 minutes.

The layout came together quickly and cleanly, which should make the final routing process much easier in the next step.

Working on the 3D Schematic

Today I focused on creating the 3D schematic and taking a closer look at how the components actually work.

Even though I already understand the theory pretty well—I scored a 5 on the test, lol—it was still useful to break everything down in detail.

The whole process went surprisingly fast.

It took me about an hour and a half to fully understand the structure, behavior, and interaction of the elements in the design.

Initial Thoughts: Project Idea

First Thoughts — The Project Concept

The idea for this project was born during our introductory automation classes, where we were working with multiplexers.

Multiplexers can take several input signals and combine them into one output, directing it to a specific destination.

In contrast, demultiplexers perform the opposite operation—they take a single input and distribute it to multiple outputs.

(Side note: Multiplexers are widely used in digital systems to optimize resource usage, reduce the number of required signal lines, and simplify circuit designs. They can also help minimize noise and improve signal routing efficiency.)

With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to create a similar system but for analog signals, such as sensor outputs used with microcontrollers.

The idea is simple: instead of using multiple analog inputs on a microcontroller, I would use only one, effectively saving pin space and increasing flexibility.