So my group and I are doing a science fair, and judges from last year said to upgrade it to a PCB. We have never made or have any experience in making one. We are also doing a project which includes 3 separate parts which are quite complicated to combine. Our code from last year is also not exactly what we wanted due to it not sending messages to your phone. Can someone please help my group and I
. We are in great need of help, and our teacher doesn’t know what to do.
It sounds like you misunderstood the role of the forum. We are not a free design or code shop. You are expected to do the best you can, and when you hit a roadblock, you post your code and wiring diagrams here, and then a helper will give you a pointer (NOT the entire solution)
If you need help with making a PCB, then Google is your friend.
The code will be the easy part.
I’ve found that using EASYEDA is pretty user-friendly for beginners to design a schematic and convert to a PCB. This PCB can then be printed by JLCPCB.
Do you have a hand-drawn sketch of your schematic? That would help determine the “complexity” of what you’re getting into (and how much time it may take someone).
thank you so much
my bad ![]()
I moved your topic to an appropriate forum category @billy_bonca61972.
In the future, when creating a topic please take some time to pick the forum category that best suits the subject of your topic. There is an "About the _____ category" topic at the top of each category that explains its purpose.
This is an important part of responsible forum usage, as explained in the "How to get the best out of this forum" guide. The guide contains a lot of other useful information. Please read it.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
Today it is both easier and cheaper to make your own PCBs than it has ever been. And there is no shortage of information on the web on how to get started.
Some of the results from Googling Make your first PCB
Your best bet is KiCAD - easier and better than EasyEDA in my opinion, and directly outputs to JLCPCB for board creation.
That hasn’t been my experience at all–I found KiCAD to be a steeper learning curve (no doubt it has more advanced features, though–but I doubt that is what the OP is looking for right now). EasyEDA directly outputs to JLCPCB for board creation.
Fair! I came at it from a AutoCAD, EAGLE, and Altium background so I found KiCAD far more natural.
That tracks! For anyone already experienced in those software, I would imagine that KiCAD probably felt similar. But starting from zero, I was completely lost!
For me, KiCad is preferrable over common alternatives because it is open source software. Even in the hypothetical case where I found a proprietary alternative to be easier to use, I would still choose KiCad.
However, that is of course my own take on the subject. For someone else who is less reluctant to rely on proprietary software, an easier to use proprietary alternative might indeed be seen as preferrable.
I found KiCad excellent. It has an excellent forum. I can't get over how quick and efficient JLCPCB is. Submit on Saturday night, get the PCBs Wednesday morning.
Btw, many of the current pcb companies don’t need gerbers; they can accept the cad files directly from the program.
For instance, see oshpark.com