Need some help with ground planes/caps

Community PCB Design
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I’ve been working on this PCB (in EAGLE) since September, and I’m glad it’s finally almost done. Since I have no formal training in electronics though, I must admit I’m pretty much shooting blindly with my ground planes, stitching, and capacitors. I’f you’ve got the time, I’d really appreciate some feedback on how my ground plane and via stitching looks and how it can be improved, and definitely comment on other things if you can, because it can only help me improve. :smiley:

Also, I’ve only got 7 caps going from +5V to ground. (1x100uF polarized cap, and 6x0.01uF ceramics) Do I need more, or to change their values? The board has two ATmega328s on it, and some LCD circuitry that hits about 1.5MHz tops.

Here are a couple of nice big screenshots:

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2722/lcd10.png

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/7734/lcd2.png

If you need more information, files, etc. and want to help with more detail, please PM me. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the help, I totally appreciate it!

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DT & DS are extremely close to a mounting hole, how is the board affixed?

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mattylad:
DT & DS are extremely close to a mounting hole, how is the board affixed?

Do you mean the 5mm LEDs on an angle? Those are actually meant to be bent and mounted 90 degrees, facing toward the button pads. I should fix that silkscreen. The pad for the ZIF connector at the top is also extremely close, but that hole is just there for the prototype.

The holes with a silkscreen ring around them will have small screws from the bottom side into a plastic case on the top side. The five larger holes have plastic standoffs running through them to connect the top and bottom halves of the case, and the small holes with no silk just have plastic pegs running through them to keep the board lined up.

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OKIDOKI… Just wanted to check.

I take it that this is going to be hand assembled/soldered too?