Today I continued testing my latest batch of circuit boards and although early tests looked good, I eventually found some errors. My hardware (including the electronics) is designed to be modular (i.e. use this and that for one experiment, but swap out thing 1 for thing 2 and run a completely different test). The core functionality of my circuits works as expected and has the benefit of a handful of revisions. For more complicated experiments, additional PCBs are needed and the latest versions of these boards have error; thus I'll have to revert back to a previous version. You might ask why I bothered to make new boards if the old ones were "good enough" and the answer is simple, I've made changes to the power supplies to reduce the noise I measure during experiments. Also the newer boards are more compact, making them easier to set-up and adding a bit of wow factor, but I'l admit these are secondary concerns.
I'll make notes of the necessary revisions and bank these in case I have an opportunity to reprint the boards in the future, but with only a few months left until I submit my thesis, it's unlikely I'll have new boards made before I submit in September.
Despite things not working out exactly to plan, I left work with a clear sense of what to do tomorrow and Friday as I finish my preparations and pack up for Saturday's flight. Even though I am taking some of my "old" circuit boards, I at least know what to take! Which helps when the flight leaves in less than 70 hours.
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