The GP202

A couple weeks ago I finished the initial design of our new “GP202” electronic module, an upgrade of our “GP102” which was designed almost 15 years ago as an add-on to existing scissor vehicles to provide them with European mandated platform overload safety. That design uses a microprocessor that is basically obsolete now, and limited in it’s abilities – the redesign uses a new processor which is up to 10 times faster, has 4 times the storage, 25% more connections and costs less than half the amount!
Here is the finished PCB layout; it closely matches the original GP102 design, but includes more circuits since we had the extra processor connections:

GP202 PCB layout

The microprocessor is the square shape at the top middle; you can see all the 64 pin connections around it, and red (top layer) and blue (bottom layer) signals running from it to everywhere else on the PCB.

Now today I’ve received the first built module, ready for me to test; here it is with power connected and an oscilloscope probe attached at the top:

GP202 built and being tested

You notice there’s already a couple corrections to the design (for example resistors mounted up in the air, bottom right) – what you can’t see is a tiny “0402” resistor soldered between two pins of the processor, to make the oscillator work – I missed that part out but luckily the 0402 part, at 1mm x 0.5mm, is small enough to sit between the two pins – and CMS that builds PCBs for us is skilled enough to fit the part.

So now I get to write software and figure if there’s any other design errors; hopefully not!