Brick Controller 2 Schematic

Working on the two schematics for the Brick Controller 2.  One is the main PCB that has the PIC32MX470, motor control, LP5569 LED controller, BLE interface and the Type C USB interface.  The other is for the Sound interface daughter card, which has the SST26 Flash memory, the VS1053 MP3 player and a Class D amplifier. 

The daughter card is almost done, just need to make a final decision on the Class D amplifier.  I had 250 of MAX9711 Class AB amplifiers, but I worry about heat and efficiency with those.  So I am looking at some others from Maxim and TI.  More later on this once I make a decision.

The main board is also almost finished.  After struggling with connectors for the LED portion last year on the Light Controller, I decided to use the same connectors that Brick Stuff is using for the PICO LEDS.  They are small and I can stack them.  Plus users can either use Brick Stuff LEDs, or get cables from them, or get cables from Digi-Key.  That makes it as as easy I can.  If I were to go back to the push in type connectors on the original Brick Controller, it would take up a large amount of space and I dont want this to be any bigger than it is already.

Another design issue that came up is that I have used every pin on the PIC32MX470, 64 pin version.  This always  make me nervous when I do a design and all the pins are taken, before the first build.  I know I have forgotten something or will find that I need another control line.  The only two pins left are the PGC and PGD programming pins.  I will connect these to pads on the PCB that I can get to and place zero ohm resistors in the path.  These will be my two spares.  I can do 95% of the debugging with printf statements out the console port.  And in a desperate moment I can steal the console port Rx pin since it is very seldom used.  Moving up to the 100 pin part, just seems like a waste.

More on the design in the next few days.