Thanks a lot for watching! If you like the video, please leave a like and a comment - this really helps me out :) Part 1: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nkHFoxe0mrU.html
I am from pakistan but living in germnay. I am PCB designer , I recently shifted to altium, and i started following you. Thanks man ; ich bin sehr dankbar.
I am now retired but spent 45 years in electronics hardware design including many years designing PCBs mainly using Altium. I am now starting to use KiCAD for my home projects so was looking for tutorials which would help me pick up KiCAD. Phil's video is an excellent tutorial for the methodology of the PCB layout process an well the specifics of KiCAD. It includes many of the detailed nuances of the design process and captures many of the compromises that have to be made whilst covering component placement priorities dictates by signal crosstalk, track inductance and stray capacitance. I will certainly be looking at other videos he has made. Well done!
Another great new feature in KICAD 7 is the pack feature. Just highlight the parts in your schematic you want to place next (e.g. a whole block like RF or USB-C), switch to the PCB Editor window and press "P". This will automatically group the selected parts on your cursor and you can drag them wherever you want. Great video!
Thanks Phil, this is pure gold! You provide guidelines on so many critical topics of the design process! Otherwise it would take years and years of experience to figure out all this on your own!
@@PhilsLab I'm absolutely sure that they are! I would also be interested in your opinion about thermal relief SMD pad connection vs. same-net-island_but-no-thermal-relief connection to SMD pads. This is because I believe the latter could more often lead to tombstone'd SMD parts due to unequal heat dispersion capabilities with reference to opposite ends of a two pin SMD component for example. There were examples for both in this video of yours, so I would be interested to know your opinion about the methods. Maybe others could benefit from your response as well? Thanks!
Thank you, Mohamed - I'd love to create more of these long-form videos. Unfortunately, even for simple projects such as this one, they take a rather large amount of time...
I have designed a pcb using esp32, motor driver,buckconverter,pi filte, and,usb_c. I had a lot of doubts while designing it but after watching this video all doubts were cleared.And also I have enrolled in your paid courses and these courses are amazing.Thank you so much sir.
Hi Phil! This was a great tutorial!! I have about 15 years of experience in PCB design and I'd say I agree 99% with all the decisions you took on this design. I came to your video mostly to get knowledge on how to better use KiCad and I'm glad both the KiCad aspects as well as PCB design are very solid. I'll probably get your course on Fedevel to deepen my understanding on KiCad. Thanks for sharing this for free!!!
Regarding the round corners of the PCB, with Kicad 7 you can just draw the rectangle and with the right mouse button select "Fillet tracks" and enter the radious. It's a very usefull feature (well hidden and with a masked name), because doing it manually it's a pain. Very good tip to color the net classes, I have just applied it and really helps a lot!
been looking forward to this since part 1. I'm currently working on an esp32 board (my first) and while the schematic was relatively straight forward with the hardware design guide (and using other boards I already had been using as reference), the layout and routing still feels very daunting, even with the hardware design guide and reference board. this will help me a lot!
So clearly explained, and packed with pure electronics geekery! I thoroughly enjoyed this video and gained a lot of confidence in doing my own projects. Thank you, Phil.
For rounding edge cuts, you can right click the rectangle and then click "Fillet Lines" :) Going to have to try the DXF approach though, would make it easier to make a 3d printed case later
Phil, i really really hope this content gets good views for you (the work you put in is incredible as always)!!! Appreciate the youtube algorithm may not be friendly with these long form videos, and you are relying on subs to watch (which they will as thats why we sub!). I've always LOVED your content so please keep on the good work! Something I really liked was when you made the m.2 card. Would really love to see more of the 'high end' stuff like pcie implementations (now the pi 5 has a pci breakout - 2 lane - i could see a 'market' for people wanting more info on things they make for themselves using it rather than relying on hats). Have you ever thought about CM4 carrier board design as it has the mix of matching B2B connector layouts, pci, usb, etc.. however do appreciate your main knowledge base is STM32. I find all your content so therapeutic! I know you use the Tag connect pogo pin thing but any tips of homebrewing it as the official ones are stupidly expensive for what they are £40+ for some ribbon cable, 6 pogo pins and cheap molded plastic... we know the cost price to tag-connect is gonna be cheap like £1-5....
Thank you very much! Surprisingly, these long-form KiCad videos typically perform far better in terms of views compared to shorter ones/different topics. I have a number of more advanced/non-STM32 vids on the channel, also touching on PCIe routing with FPGAs. But I agree, a carrier board for a CM4 or NVidia SBC would make for interesting content - thanks for the suggestion! Regarding Tag-Connect, the upfront cost may seem high, but the practicality of the cables, ease-of-use, not needing headers on boards makes up for it many, many times in my opinion. Thanks for your support!
@PhilsLab yh a carrier board might be fun as you have a LOAD of options to design for a mix of easier and complex IO. You could add pci to usb or ethernet chips, pci mux. Would love to see high-speed usb (ie usb 3.x) as well with usb c. As always love the content and wishing you a GREAT christmas and heres to 2024 and wishing it be a hreat year for you and the channel
the video is top again- and for me the first 60min are so important(settings before routing etc.) , because I didn´t know that with net class colors, which mae route much easier- thanks Phil great work.
Thank for this detailed and professional tutorial. However, 3:55 as a hobbyist I can't agree with this statement that 4 layers are very inexpensive. The same number of 2 layer pcbs from pcbway would cost $5. Or 10 times less expensive than 4 layers! Considering the fact that half of my projects were less than $50 (including components and enclosure), I would say that unless it is required by technology or design is very complex, I always to try to route pcb in 2 layers first.
The 'rule of thumb' is to never break up/interrupt the ground pours. But there are times (definitely seen it on professional boards) where you very much want seperated ground planes (I think this is for thing where there is a seperate analogue ground). I dont think I've seen many people cover pcb layout design where you really do want separate planes and like super uber use of via stiching etc.. is it one of those areas of knowledge like 'you KNOW when you need to do it because you have the specific special expertise to know about it' and basically every other time, without fault, you don't have split planes. Other than the PCB antenna video you made a bit back have you any other experience with PCB RF filters? I only ask as it seems usual for the layout team to be a seperate group from the schematic and design teams, and it seems like they may not have the 'full' knowledge of how to design such rf stuff (ie the calcs and knowing what needs to be done etc to waht signals etc) but still need to then layout and route it..... which sounds 'fun'...... I assume the schematic team and company as a whole would have custom footprints and the pcb layout team just need to lay them out even if they don't fully know how they work
Hello Phil, Will there be a video on a board with the ESP32-S3 at some point? I would very much like to see how to create a custom PCB for it and maybe with a built-in display using either I2C or SPI :-)
@PhilsLab thank you for you videos especially for KiCad it is really very helpful, I just use it as tutorial to create mine project (best one in youtube right now)
I'm afraid I don't provide the design files for this. My personal experience is that I learn better by doing designs myself from scratch, rather than copying.
@@PhilsLab I get it , I just wanted a pdf version of it just to compare my design against it as a reference design. Anyways the video was a great help for me. Thank you. :)
I noticed that in my PCB editor, the "show pads in outline mode" (button on the left) was on by default, or perhaps I'd activated it with a hotkey at some point. Turning this off (as in Phil's video) makes things a lot easier to read.
Heads up to all - 2:32:18 - If you de-select "Keep Outside Layers", you will get some questions during review (at least from JLC) about your design. I don't have ground pours on top/bottom layers but they seemed confused if they were blind/buried vias (not offered) or through holes.
I tried Altium for some time and got back to KiCAD, cause it does not add any obstacles. You just draw and trace. I don't develop 12 layers AMD motherboard, and so will never use 90% of Altium features, but I found out that it does not help to make work fast. Please, more edu vids with KiCAD. May be with some useful plugins.
When I click on the impedance control, the price increases by 50 euros 😱. I took the 0.17mm and 0.22mm and ordered without impedance control and got pretty the same price as you.
Hi Very nice video. Can you please explain how I can get the plugin or if you can give the link of the plugin for generating BOM because the old one for kicad 6 is not working anymore in kicad 7.
This is an amazing series, thank you. Question: I followed everything to a T, yet I'm getting a ton of DRC violations. For example, on the WB55 footprint, for every pad I'm getting a "Front solder mask aperture bridges items with different nets" error. Thanks for any guidance you can provide.
Thank you! Regarding that DRC violation, you can either space components further apart, or reduce the solder mask openings (we set them to 0 in the video and let the manufacturer adjust). Check out this forum post, for example: forum.kicad.info/t/6-99-drc-fail-solder-mask-aperture-bridges-items-with-different-nets/35311
Thank you for the video. Even using KiCAD for a long while, I've got some good tips from it. What do you think about using microstrip vs coplanar waveguide for controlled impedance traces? Do you have any preference on that? If so, what's your reasoning? I haven't done much RF design, but the last one had a 4G modem. I used the suggested 4 layer Signal/GND/GND/Signal stackup and went for coplanar waveguide on top layer, GND copper pour on both external layers, but I might have just went with microstrip and no pour on external layers.
i didn't understand 2:43:54 "Additional Documents" parts. Although maybe my English not good enough to understand. But can someone save me a time for saying is that important part or just a "making the pcb close enough to the perfect part"? if someone answer me, I'll appreciate it.
Very good explanation of the entire process but I am still not clear which service is better for PCB manufacturing and assembly for maker projects and hobby users: PCBWay or JLCPCB? If you can give us your evaluation, thank you!
Thank you! PCBWay offers quite a bit more flexibility when it comes to both PCB specs and assembly, which can be/is very important in more intricate/advanced designs. For maker/hobby boards usually this doesn't matter too much of course, so in many cases either option is fine. I am biased however with the PCBWay sponsorship :)
Thanks for great content Phil. Soon Kicad 8 will be out and you get to make it again :) I have a question on how the component sourcing works in practice. You specify parts from Mouser in germany in your BOM and PcbWay will source them. But do they just source the few components needed for your boards? Don't they need to order full reels of components for their PnP machines? For example the USB connector you specified, if they don't have it in stock, how do they go about that? Also, can PcbWay source components from LCSC? Wouldn't this be much cheaper since AFAIK they keep large stocks of components from various manufactureres, and they're located in china. A wish you a merry christmas!
Thanks for watching! Haha yeah, KiCad 8 vid will have to be made soon! Since PCBWay handles many orders at a time, they will combine and order 'in bulk' from various distributors to get parts together for various customers in parallel. Yes, they can source from pretty much any vendor (incl. LCSC). Happy holidays!
Did anyone submit the gerber files to PCBway to only have the board manufactured? I’m curious what anyone else might have gotten back in terms of the price. Mine (without shipping) was roughly $105. Thanks!
I'd also like to know if it was in college you learnt a bulk of the knowledge of pcb or you self-leaned. What would you suggest someone studies and learns to perfect this skill.
The examples were actually made using a different ECAD tool (Altium Designer). However, I believe there are some plugins available for KiCad that should be able to create similar drawings.
Thanks for watching! I studied electrical and control systems engineering, however, PCB design wasn't part of the curriculum. This is pretty much all self-taught.
@@PhilsLab I'm grateful for your response. Can you suggest a pathway how one can self-teach electronics and pcb design or do you have a video on it? Thank you.
@@PhilsLab got it. ST have a companion IPD ic for RF , if I add that do i still wanna do the trace impedance matching? Also that ic is more expensive than a LC filter , is that worth it?.
Ah, the quirks are always something with KICAD but it is free so its just a workflow thing. The worst package I use professionally is PADS, if you want to hate your job give it a try!
Definitely! I must say, it had also been about a year of not using KiCad, before preparing for this video, as I've just been using Altium - I'm sure there are easier/better ways of doing things at times. Definitely haven't heard the greatest things about PADS haha..
@PhilsLab I dont recall if you did one, but a video about multi-sheet schematics in KICAD would be nice. Its another quirk that is strange compared to any other EDA.
Yes, I've done this many times. And EMC problems of course do crop up at times - I'd like to make some videos on the process. These types of boards typically require an RF can/shield in many cases to pass certification testing (e.g. check out pre-certfied modules from u-blox, ST, u-blox, etc..).
@@PhilsLab definitely a good idea of video! Following the design of a pcb from the beggining to the emc testing, emc testing are expansive so maybe recording the process for a board you do at your job? The most important is the thought process to counter emc issues, not the emc testing themselves
Indeed. I recently (finally) acquired a nanoVNA and wanted to test out various antennas, as I have used trace and off-board antennas quite a bit and thus wanted to give this a go :)
Follow the datasheet of the chip antenna - this'll give you information on GND/copper structures, and matching impedance. But in essence, it's a pretty straightforward implementation.
can you make any video about electronics as core , R, L,C,Antenna design, not the basic level but advance level such as designing own circuit . emebedded is like only programming , i looking for designing tutorials.