Menu
What's new

Circuit Board Design

Darren Wright

Darren Wright

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
20,157
Location
Springfield, Missouri
I know a few of you dabble in electronics. Just curious what others are using for their circuit designs and whom they usually order boards from?

I had started out trying Eagle, switched to Fritzing for a short time, then tried KiCad. Either I just didn't find them easy to use or couldn't figure out how to get my design out to order. Lately I've been using an online/browser based designer called EasyEDA (https://easyeda.com/). They seem to have a lot of components and user submitted components already available, without having to go import them or design yourself as in the others I've tried.

Once the design is done and you want to export it, there is a quality and trace check, they then prompt with the option to use their partner JLCPCB to order the boards. I tried that option and for 100 mm x 100 mm boards, 2 sided, it's been $5 for 10. The shipping options are slow boat from china for $8 or $18 for DHL. The slow boat took about a month to arrive. I just made the last order using DHL on Friday and it says it should arrive this Friday.

This one was one of the first boards I've had done, seems to be of good quality. The re-designed version I sent on Friday is a little better layout and traces are a little more organized as I'm starting to get used to their software now.
2020-08-04 14.09.09.jpg

They also have a partner to install any SMD components you're using for you. I may try that will a future order
 
sure beats back in the day (70's) when I had to put black drafting tape on clear Mylar then do a photo mask followed by acid etching and then manual drill then holes, plated through holes were another fun thing for double sided. Guess I am showing my age. So I guess no one bothers with doing wire wrap for prototyping these days.
 
I'm not say'n I'm old but I worked on tube amplifier I even did some work with magnetic amplifiers in the 60's. Then transistors were a god send and TTL logic is how we built 'Computers" there was no "CPU". Hell the first IC I worked with was the venerable LM 741. My first CPU was the motorola 6800... OK I'm "that old"
 
Hey Don, Don't know how old Charley Lent is, but if your profile is correct you were just a mere teenager in the '60s.... You were 12 when I graduated high school....and in liberality, I don't know from Adam what either of you are talking about...all Greek to me. I saw and operated my first computer in 1974 when TWA bought an Alitalia program to handled cargo documentation... talk about a circus, it took 6 different sign-ins to just enter an airwaybill before TWA finally got the program fixed... it worked, but took 2 or 3 times as long to process a waybill.

Art Bucholtz once said: "Computers makes it easier to do a lot of things... problem is a lot of things computers make easier don't need to be done."

My son is a programmer and had his own computer programming company for a couple of years before he was bought out... me - I'm as lost as a goose when it comes to why and how a computer works.
 
Charles Lent said:
Don't feel bad, I am that old too. 6SN5, 12AX7, 6AU6, 6L6, etc. were part of my language too.
Click to expand...
Those are still in my vocabulary. The amp modeler I use with my guitars is essentially a computer that recreates the circuitry of hundreds of different tube amps. Within each virtual model I can change the values of various components, and also swap out tube types in the preamp and power amp sections. If I want to change the stock 12AX7A tubes in the preamp of a early 1960s Fender Twin to EF86 tubes, it's as easy as clicking a mouse. Or swap the 6L6Gc tubes in the power amp to a set of EL34s...easy peasy. And since it's all in the virtual realm, there's no risk of blowing something up. :D
 
Chuck Ellis said:
Hey Don, Don't know how old Charley Lent is, but if your profile is correct you were just a mere teenager in the '60s.... You were 12 when I graduated high school....and in liberality, I don't know from Adam what either of you are talking about...all Greek to me. I saw and operated my first computer in 1974 when TWA bought an Alitalia program to handled cargo documentation... talk about a circus, it took 6 different sign-ins to just enter an airwaybill before TWA finally got the program fixed... it worked, but took 2 or 3 times as long to process a waybill.

Art Bucholtz once said: "Computers makes it easier to do a lot of things... problem is a lot of things computers make easier don't need to be done."

My son is a programmer and had his own computer programming company for a couple of years before he was bought out... me - I'm as lost as a goose when it comes to why and how a computer works.
Click to expand...
Chuck, I joined the Navy in 1966 at the ripe old age of 18 and we used tubes, transistors and magnetic amplifiers. Being in the Navy and on board one of the most advanced weapons system in the world (An FBM submarine) I worked on some of the most sophisticated electronic circuits in the world...lol. I got out at the age of 24 in 1972 and went to work for an electronic manufacturer who made variable speed DC drives using Thymatron tubes to control the speed of DC motors later they used SCR's. In college after I got out the first computer I used was as big as a room and I had to use punch cards to input the program..lol. it was in Fortran.
 
Interesting stuff guys. Other than basic electronics, digital was taught while I was in college, but the chips were all pretty basic then op timers and amplifiers. A 20 MHz oscilloscope was more than enough speed for the electronics then.

So I've received the boards that were supposed to come on Friday today. I realized shortly after ordering it that it may not fit the enclosures I bought. I went ahead and re-designed to fit them and re-ordered new ones. I'll still use these but will need a slightly larger enclosure than the ones I currently have.

So I've been following along with the progress of the boards. They check the files to ensure there aren't any mistakes in them, then charge you if they go into production, or refund you if you've pre-paid. I've just been pre-paying and haven't had any issues yet.

This is the status screen for each board.
OrderProcess.PNG

When you hover the status, they show you a short canned video of that process to explain what they are doing.
drillingpcb.PNG
 
Don Baer said:
Chuck, I joined the Navy in 1966 at the ripe old age of 18 and we used tubes, transistors and magnetic amplifiers. Being in the Navy and on board one of the most advanced weapons system in the world (An FBM submarine) I worked on some of the most sophisticated electronic circuits in the world...lol. I got out at the age of 24 in 1972 and went to work for an electronic manufacturer who made variable speed DC drives using Thymatron tubes to control the speed of DC motors later they used SCR's. In college after I got out the first computer I used was as big as a room and I had to use punch cards to input the program..lol. it was in Fortran.
Click to expand...
You're still speaking Greek to me...
I joined the Navy in 1960 a week after I turned 19... (because of my birthdate and little rural schools I didn't get to start school until 2 weeks before I turned 7, so graduated late at 18)... I was a radio operator, more concerned with telex machines and morse code keys... never got all that good at morse code, but one jim-dandy telex operator... I learned a little about electricity - the hard way - when I set a reperforator in a live case a little crooked.... when I got up off the desk behind me, I had blown every circuit in the radio shack, plus put a 1 inch hole in the re-perf case... that stuff can kill you.... luckily it only felt like some one hit be in the elbows with a baseball bat.
BTW, I requested the sub service, but wasn't selected... being a non-swim sailor may have been a factor. Growing up my mother always told me to stay away from deep water until you learned to swim.... so I went into the navy as a non-swim... actually had to see a head shrink to find out why I didn't swim... still not much of a swimmer, but I used to water ski with a friend who had a big Cobalt ski boat up on a lake in California. I learned to walk on water too when his wife jerked me off my skis once in a turn... I actually took about 3 or 4 steps before I went over.:D
 
I went on to design the camera positioning system for the Lunar Ranger program. This system was needed to hold the camera on a position while the shutter was open for time exposures, while the rocket containing the camera was orbiting the Moon. These photos were needed to be able to make mapping photos of the Moon, most importantly, the back side of the Moon. On the bright side of the Moon, it wasn't necessary. Film was being used in the camera, with a developer much like a Poloroid system. Then the sequential photo images taken were later scanned and sent back to Earth during idle times and after the photo mapping session had been completed. The maps were needed for the upcoming Apollo Missions and also to learn more about the dark side of the Moon. A circular scanning photo multiplier tube was used to collect a few bits of data from the Moon surface, and the electronics then produced servo correction signals to keep the camera locked on each position while the camera shutter was open.

A few years later I designed control systems for the machinery that built the ICs that went into the on-board computers for the Apollo Missions. An instrument ring containing the flight staging computers sat on top of the third stage rocket with a third stage fuel tank dome extending up through the middle of it. The same ICs were used for the flight staging computer that were used to make the capsule on-board computers.

Since becoming fully retired in 2016, I haven't done anything in the way of electronic design, but I have added a few power circuits to the house and bought a bunch of ready made electronic gear. The designing part of my brain is into woodworking and photography now.

Charley
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top