Flux Capacitor Shield for Arduino

Hi guys!

This is my very first PCB project.

Recently I had the opportunity to meet JLCPCB, which produces high quality PCBs for a good price. So, I made an Arduino project inspired by Back To The Future movie: the Flux Capacitor Shield!

All the steps to make this shield are shown in the video, but here I'll describe it a bit more.

I don't have many skills with PCB design, and have tried Fritzing some time ago and liked it very much. It's quite easy to use also if you are a beginner.

Once the design is ready, we have to export the Gerber files (it's available to download), and must be in a compressed folder.

Then, we go to jlcpcb.com to get a quote and make the order.

With the boards in hands, it's time to put all the components together.

We need, for each Flux Capacitor Shield:

• 3X 220 ohm resistor;
• 9X 3mm LEDs;
• male header pins;
• 2X push button.

Started by putting the header pins on the Arduino UNO board, which also gives us a good support while soldering.

Then solder the resistors and cut its long legs.

Solder the LEDs and cut the legs.

And solder the push buttons.

A tip here... put an additional strip of headers to increase the space between the shield and the USB jack on the Arduino UNO board, to prevent short circuit.

With everything soldered, it's time to code it.

I made a simple code to test the shield, that is available to download.

I still have to code the two push buttons. The idea is to increase/decrease the "flux" (the speed of the blinks) while pressing the push buttons.

Great Scott!