Hi all,
I'm contemplating making a PCB for my project. I have looked at a few videos on you tube and read a few blogs. I would be grateful for any advice on the best software to use for designing a PCB. I have a cnc available if i need it. Or am I better off using a chemical approach? I really don't know a whole lot about the process to be honest so if anyone has any hints that might point me in a direction that suits a beginner I would be most grateful.
Thanks in advance Dermot.
Search this site, use the 'Search Arduino Forum' box at the top of the page.
This has been discussed many many times.
.
I would recommend having a board house make your board. Its so cheap now, and the results so good compared to the process for home fabrication, I find it very hard to justify doing it oneself (I did in the past, before I realized just how cheap it was to have boards made - dirtypcbs, pcbway and oshpark are all pretty affordable, especially dirtypcbs, and the boards come out great)
I use eagle - there's a free version with limits on it for non-commercial use, and a less limited hobby version as well. Eagle libraries are so much easier to find than libraries for the fully free packages, and it's a professional grade program that you might use if you end up doing this for real work.
So if i went the board house route will I still need to design a PCB, or is a schematic drawing enough. ?
or is a schematic drawing enough.
No, you need to send them what is called gerber files. This contains all the track, drilling, solder mask and silk screen information.
You could submit artwork that is twice full size on polyester drafting film, but that is very old fashioned these days.
Most free packages are far inferior to commercial payed stuff, but commercial stuff can be horrendously expensive. For example about 10 years ago "Verybest" cost £30,000 per seat per year.
However for free I use kicad, just google
kicad PCB layout
There are others but kicad will work on a Mac as well as Linux and Windows.
mechup:
So if i went the board house route will I still need to design a PCB, or is a schematic drawing enough. ?
Yes you can do this but expect to pay thousands for the engineer to design the PCB from your schematic.
I like Eagle because it is free for the typical small Arduino boards, has lots of part libraries available and plugs straight into OSHPark with no "convert to Gerbers" stage. It is also a professional-grade program that can be used to design very complex devices and can interface to other CAD programs like the one you will use to 3D-print the box.
Stay away from the free programs produced by the board houses themselves. They lock you in to a proprietary system. If that company goes bankrupt or stops providing that service, you can't get your files.
". It is also a professional-grade program that can be used to design very complex devices and can interface to other CAD programs like the one you will use to 3D-print the box."
I don't understand the "3D print the box" reference. Also, I had a read of some of the posts on this site relating to the best software for pcb design and a lot of guys recommended eagle . I 'm sure I read somewhere that I would be limited to the overall circuit board size. My proposed board size might be larger . have you any experience of Fritzing?
Well, usually you put the PCB inside some sort of box. You don't leave it exposed to the elements. You will need holes in the box for the wires or connectors. Getting those in the right place is great if you have a 3D printer and you can export the PCB shape into the program you use for the box design.
F**ing gets a bad name here because most people use the "breadboard view" which looks pretty but is actually useless for understanding actual circuits. It's like a write-only system. It makes perfect sense when you design it but no-one else can read it.
However F**ing does have a schematic view and it can design PCBs. Does it let you download Gerbers so you can take your design to someone else? I don't think so - I think it's a closed proprietary system.
If Autocad (the new owners of Eagle) decide that they don't want to offer the free version any more, then I bet someone will write a conversion program to change all your files over to another program and the only thing you've lost is the time spent learning Eagle. If the F**ing website shuts down, then your files are unrecoverable.