WTM20 - Creating Your Own PCB At Home by Cindy Potvin

You may have built a few electronics prototypes on breadboards (or blinked a few LEDs), but making a printed circuit board seem like a huge step! I went through it recently, and I’m here to show you it’s not that hard or expensive. You CAN get only a few boards printed for a hobby project or prototype that looks professional without breaking the bank. This talk will show you the steps required to create your own circuit board using the KiCad open source software that you can then order and show to your all friends.

Cindy Potvin
Montreal, QC, Canada / GIRO
(VE2PTN); Senior web developer and electronics hobbyist

Cindy is a senior software web developer at GIRO. In the last ten years, she has worked across the stack on ASP.NET, React and Android applications. She also loves tinkering and building electronics projects at home, putting her electrical engineering degree from the ETS to some use!

Transcript

1. Creating Your Own PCB At Home By Cindy Potvin (@CindyPtn) https://www.robotsbench.com
7. Let’s shop!
8. BOM - Bill of materials • A list of everything you need to be able to build the same project again : ◦ Electronics parts ◦ Connectors ◦ Cables ◦ Enclosures • Should be checked in with the rest of your project files in source control.
9. BOM - Bill of materials • Why now? ◦ To build the schematic, you need to know which parts you have to work with. ◦ To layout the PCB, you need to know the size and package of the components.
10. Shopping at Mouser and Digi-key
14. Shopping at AliExpress, Banggood, eBay
16. Building the schematic
17. eEchema - Creating a schematic
18. eEchema - Placing a symbol and value
20. eEchema - Wiring
21. eEchema - Getting ready for the PCB
22. eEchema - Getting ready for the PCB
23. Laying out the board
24. Setting up the board
25. Setting up the board • For small projects, 2 layers is a good place to start. ◦ Ground will generally be on the bottom layer.
26. Setting up the board • 4 layer boards, for more advanced projects. Price climbs a lot as you add layers!
27. Setting up the board
29. Pcbnew - Creating a new layout
31. Pcbnew - Drawing the outline
32. Pcbnew - Placing components
33. Pcbnew - Routing
34. Pcbnew - Ground plane
36. Pcbnew - Complete with silkscreen
37. Pcbnew - Complete 3D View
38. Pcbnew - Design rule check
39. Shopping again!
40. Pcbnew - Exporting
41. Pcbnew - Exporting
42. Gerblook - Check your export
43. Ordering the board from Elecrow
44. Pricing example for tiny production run (44mm X 44mm board) Fabrication house Pricing Shipping Notes https://www.elecrow.com/ 4,90$ USD / 10 6.67$ USD The one I used for my project. https://www.oshpark.com 15$ USD / 3 0$ Manufacturer in the US. Always purple boards! https://www.allpcb.com 7$ USD / 10 9$ USD https://www.pcbway.com 5$ USD / 10 6$ USD
45. Building and conclusion
46. Receiving the boards
47. Building a board
48. Completed project!
49. Questions? Thank you! @CindyPtn https://www.robotsbench.com https://github.com/cindypotvin