PCB Drive By

• intro to circuit boards
• schematic capture
• board layout
• fabricating a board using homebrew techniques you can use on the floor
• how to send a board out to be professionally fabricated
• quick introduction to using surface mount parts

Intro to Circuit Boards

• differences between breadboard, veroboard, wirewrap and printed circuits
• advantages/disadvantages of PCBs

Schematic Capture

• Eagle is insane (but consistently so)
• finding parts in libraries
• connecting parts
• create your own part

Board Layout

• transferring from schematic to board
• setting board size
• placing components
• drawing wires (circuit traces)
• layers (top, bottom, soldermask, silkscreen)
• layout tips
• • good sizes for pads and holes
• • manipulating grid
• • ground plane (fills)

Fabricating Your Board

• homebrew techniques
• Gerber file format
• using the SparkFun CAM script
• • slight modifications by Nick
• panelizing
• Design Rule Check (DRC)
• • using freedfm.com
• • using Eagle
• some online fabricators
• • BatchPCB
• ** http://www.batchpcb.com (SparkFun front end to Gold Phoenix, $10 + $2.50/in, no minimum)
• • Gold Phoenix
• ** http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/ ($120, 155sq in, multiple jobs on one panel)
• • Custom PCB
• ** http://www.custompcb.com/

Surface Mount Soldering

• you can do it
• watch Nick solder!