I’m not very skilled in placing components and traces yet. My current designs waste a lot of room between components and it sometimes seems impossible to place-n-trace components around the current project, have a top & bottom ground plane, and keep high voltage/current signals away from sensitive ICs.
My question: What are some more advanced online design & layout classes or tutorials I can take to get better at part placement & traces for 2-sided and 4-sided boards?
I’ve done every tutorial SparkFun has on embedded electronics
EDIT: I know questioners can’t be choosers, but anything like Youtube channels would be perfect since I’m a visual/doing learner. I’ve already started searching on there and Dailymotion for more information.
This is kind of like asking “how do you write a book?” – I don’t think “how to layout a PCB” is something you can learn in a tutorial because it’s so specific to the exact design you’re doing. More useful questions are things like, “how do I lay out a parallel memory bus?” or “How do I lay out an RF network?” or “How do I lay out high-voltage components?”
Those sorts of questions will get you much better-quality advice.
Don’t try to learn things you don’t need to know until you need to know them; otherwise, you’ll be completely overwhelmed. Just do a search for “layout guidelines” and you’ll find thousands of PDFs explaining everything from PCB antennas to differential buses, to noise-reducing layer stack-ups, and everything in between. It’s totally overwhelming.
You can’t write a book having never read one; and the more you read, the better you’ll be able to write. PCB layouts are the same way. Look at PCBs. Look at what people are doing, and ask yourself “why are they doing this?”
If you’re working on a specific project, why don’t you post some PDFs/PNGs of your schematics/PCBs? I’m sure people will be able to give you some suggestions (I know I’d be glad to).
Learning from other people’s boards is a great way of learning. SF uses decent routing techniques, and while I would maybe route somethings a bit differently, they are a great source of learning. I know I have learned most of my routing knowledge by looking at certain designs, and through trial and error.
Wow, excellent advice both from funkathustra & Joeisi. Yeah, indeed I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the information out there, but
I’ve learned from other PCBs for placement, but it never occurred to me to learn tracing (dunno why). I’ll get right on that!
funkathustra: I know more specific questions would yield higher-quality advice, but I was at the point where I didn’t even know where to start! I’ve found a few general guideline PDFs and such and have learned plenty from them.
