Investigate PCB feasibility

[Armandpl]

i feel excited about making a PCB, the breadboard version of the robot is a bit messy, bit annoying to move around. there are not many chips required to make this work so if feel it would be quite quick and easy although:

• how easy is it to design the motor controller part?
  • can i still buy the chip from my motor controller? i think it is discontinued/out of stock
  • if not, should I just use the one Pierre uses from pololu. but it is 5V so can PWM go through the logic level shifter?
  • read the doc for the 5V driver and see how much info they include. Check pololu (even adafruit and sparkfun actually if they sell motor drivers) to see if they provide the gerber files/schematics for their breakout boards
    • seems like adafruit provides the schematics: https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/33665
• do we ask PCB way/jlpcb to assemble the PCB with chips and everything? or do we just order the stencils, parts and find a reflow oven somewhere in Paris? how expensive would it be to have them assemble the PCB? how many of them would we need to order? can we prototype it?
  • I'm leaning towards finding a reflow oven bc it's more fun -> electrolab!!! they have a reflow oven but also a reflow station don't know what that is? probably a heat gun, I guess that would work too bc we have very few components
    • been wanting to check the place out for some time !
• how expensive would it be to have someone review the design?
  • check the obvious stuff with youtube tutorials first
  • then I saw some fiver offers maybe that would work?