Success for the Serial Medal

The very first PCB for the serial medal worked flawlessly on the first attempt! I know it looks a little screwed up in the picture, but that is because of my crappy cell phone camera's very slow shutter speed. Anyway, I am terribly excited! This thing is finally coming together. I need to run out to get resistors for the red LEDs I want to put in it. 180 Ohms works great for the white LEDs but the reds have a much lower voltage drop. And I probably need to snag some 47s for the row selectors as I just had 58s on hand. Although, it looks fine with 58s.

To be certain I need to make up the other four boards and sit on them for a few days to be sure they are stable. Assuming that goes OK the next step will be to finish the work up on the Bill of Materials. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need some sponsorship to get the cost under $15 per a medal. However, I have high hopes for getting the PCBs themselves sponsored which may land me right in the $13 range.