By the way, I attached a picture I took before I burned it

beautiful board.
but these burning stuff news always make people happy

 

Happy do you solder,have you soldering iron. Maybe you just do business and travel.

 

Even now I solder some board occasionally. the most tiny component is 44pin TQFP chip

 

You are good ,you did get promotion from boss,right.

 

Did you study in America,what is best college in China that every one want to go to.

 

no.
Tsinghua ,Peking.

 

Noble prize ,you are educated and very worldly.....too bad you are a small voice in big

country.

 

Are you hitting on Happyganl Lossy. Using your small-talk routine from the Elbo-Room

 

By the way... is there some kind of insulator like a paint, that I can just brush on top of the PCB and components?

Theoretically it should be something like this, right?

http://www.taerosol.com/prf_products/27/
http://www.midwesttech.com/marketplace/product/E11-DCA200H.asp
http://bungard.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Itemid=46&lang=english
Take a look at these

 

In Combat Robotics we used Liquid Tape, it is a thick goo that drys fast and is easy to peel off. Available from Lowe's or Home Depot.

 

I wasn't going to be too sympathetic, that is until I saw the obvious pride in your beautiful PCB and the amount of work. Now I'm more sympathetic.

You can cut the legs of the PIC32 with a Stanley knife, making it fast and easy to extract it and clean up the board without lifting the tracks which would be a disaster.

And I'm going to say it anyway, ALWAYS have an inline fuse in your battery cable. Most commercial stuff that uses a large battery like alam systems with 12v AGM batteries etc use one of thos cheap plastic inline fuse holders on the red battery lead. A 3A fuse there would probably have saved everything!

Also you might be realising the need for nice safe plastic male/femal connectors on battery leads, with the female (hidden contacts) on the battery lead. Unless you stick a pin in the connector it can never "touch" anything.

 

I can't trust any of the components on the burned board (except maybe for the L298 cips), so I will make a new PCB board. I will also make some small changes to the PCB (squeeze in a fuse somewhere). I have to keep the board the same size, and the outside parts in the same location because I already drilled holes in the aluminum "heatsinks" around the board on the robot.

I attached a pic of my robot

 

By the way... a fuse would not have prevented what happened to my board, because usually a fuse is placed on the positive input on the PCB, but in my case the positive wire of the battery touched the negative on the board, so even if I had a fuse on the PCB, it would not have prevented the damage to the PCB

 

Now you are talking,Robotics.

 

By the way... is there some kind of insulator like a paint, that I can just brush on top of the PCB and components?

Theoretically it should be something like this, right?

If you get the board professionally manufactured you can get a solder mask applied which insulates.

For your DIY board you may consider something called "conformal coating" which is a clear electrical and environmental covering. Comes in a spray can too.

However, the Liquid Tape Bill mentioned is probably an effective, low cost and easily obtainable solution as well.

It looked like a very nice board. May it rest in peace.

 

By the way... a fuse would not have prevented what happened to my board, because usually a fuse is placed on the positive input on the PCB, but in my case the positive wire of the battery touched the negative on the board, so even if I had a fuse on the PCB, it would not have prevented the damage to the PCB

Maybe not ... however, if you had an "inline" fuse between your positive battery terminal and the positive connection on the PCB with an appropriate fuse [whatever you estimated the circuit to draw], you might have saved the board.

 

Especially looking at the size of that battery pack, looks like two 7Ah 12v batteries?

And the other pro technique of using a battery plug with enclosed "female" contacts is well advised. Manufacturers have been through all this stuff before.

 

Especially looking at the size of that battery pack, looks like two 7Ah 12v batteries?

Close... actually 8Ah 12V...

I will go tomorrow to the electronics store to buy some fuses, battery plugs, and male/female jacks to put on the PCB.

Also, I will be looking for something like conformal coating, to cover the PCB.

 

Check it out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An4MITVPMhU

It does not have sensors, so at this point it is just a remote controlled car. I still have to do a lot of programming for it, add sensors, then more programming, etc...

 

No links, pictures of your robotic work....The Two Day Man....