Notes and disclaimer on the Osh Park Board:

This is not a perfect board.  I'll be the first to admit this.  It most certainly has short commings.  It is designed 
to use an arduino pro mini board of the 3.3v flavor.  Do not attempt to use a 5.0v version of this board as
the Hope RFM69HCW will be destroyed.

1) The SMA foot print I found online is not a perfect match.  The copper pad for the signal pin on the back 
of the board needs to be exposed.  I do this by gently scraping off the coating with a knife.  I also found I had to
 cut off two grounds and bend the signal pin to get it to fit the tickeness of the board.  May just be the cheap SMA
I got online!

2) I inadvertainly place the pin assignments for GPS backwards meaning it needs to be mounted on the back of the board.
Refer to JPGs.

3) The foot print for the Arduino pro mini 3.3 volt has plated through holes that are not connectd to anything.  
The only plated through holes that should be used are the two rows of header as shown in the photos.

4)  I could not find a foot print for the RFM69HCW and rolled my own.  I will publish OSH Park files here
 at a future date including my foot print.

This board is designed for the RFM69HCW, 433 or 915 MHz chips.  It will not work with any other variation
of the RFM69xxx family.  It will not work with LORA chips.  It most certainly will not work with an
RFM22b!!!!!

Assembly:

1)  The boards I recieved work perfectly .  I recommend assembly in this order.

2)  Ring out the bare board before assembly.  Why not?  If you do not know what that means google it.

3)  Tin with solder one corner pad only.  Place the rfm69hcw follwing the orientation as printed on the board.
Heat and relow the solder to stick the IC to the board.  Make sure it is oriented evenly on each pad before
 continuing.

4)  Once happy with the orientation solder another corner pad but more securely.  The a third pad.  The go back 
and ensure the first pad you soldered had a good elctrical bond.  If not reflow again.

5)  Solder every other pad and give it time to cool.  Go back and finish solder the rest of the pad.

6)  I next solder onthe 2 12xpin headers.  I like headers for socketing the arduino.  It allows reuse.  BUT,...
the beast way I found to do this was to first put pins on the arduino, then press the headers on the pins,
then into the board and solder as above.

7)  The board requires the serial adapter to program but can operate with the GPS using a 5V-12V battery
 on the RAW pin, on the P1 header.

8)  If it does not work out of the can, then please ring it out again.  It is not impossible to have
created a solder bridge between pads of the rfm69 or...an open due to not enough solder between pads.

:)

Good luck.

  



