New PCBs are in

New PCBs have arrived, these represent a significant upgrade to the previous alpha version. Circuit errors have been corrected and most importantly the light meter has been integrated into the board. Normally the components on these circuit boards would be placed by robots, as we are at the prototype stage still we are hand soldering all the components. This means working with tweezers under a magnifying glass and double checking everything before applying power to the circuit. It can be pretty easy to fry a board if you don’t do things in a methodical manner, so we are taking our time to get things right.

Once the key components are on board we can power up and run a few tests. Then the main chip, the “brain” of the TYCH can be programmed and full board functionality tested out. We’ve got 10 to build up into Beta units plus a few extras to allow us to continue development whilst people are testing the cameras for us.