Intro to PCB design

jhaneyzz

jhaneyzz

Well-known member
I'm not in a hurry to dive in just immediately, but I know that eventually I'd like to design a board or two just to call my own. Nothing fancy, just tweaked ODs.

How does one get started?

I've used Eagle a tiny bit years ago but see some discussion of folks migrating to KiCad.
 
I did watch a few pedal-specific end-to-end walkthroughs of KiCad and Eagle on YouTube last night and I get the concepts now.
 
I installed DipTrace but got errors running the terminal command.

1677093067945.png

BUT.... the application launched fine and "seems" to be functioning properly.
 
I have a diptrace library someone gave me when I first started on Diptrace that's specific to pedal components, I can share that with you if you like. I don't use Diptrace anymore, but I used it exclusively for a couple years so I more or less know my way around it if you have questions.
 
vigilante398 said:
I have a diptrace library someone gave me when I first started on Diptrace that's specific to pedal components, I can share that with you if you like. I don't use Diptrace anymore, but I used it exclusively for a couple years so I more or less know my way around it if you have questions.
Click to expand...
Yes please! Just starting to design now and using eagle but might go to diptrace
 
I use and really like KiCad, it's powerful but easy to understand and there are a couple of good tutorials on YouTube about it (and it's free and open-source which is becoming increasingly important to me). I used this series:

Back in the day I tried Eagle and found it completely inscrutable. The UI was unintuitive and the manual written for people who already know how to use it.

Good luck on your journey! I'd never successfully designed and fabricated a PCB from scratch until a couple of months ago and now I'm doing it all the time.
 
I started learning Eagle following David from Guitar Effects Layouts' youtube tutorial that iamjackslackof posted above. I tried to figure out Kicad on my own and that tutorial was a godsend. I'd rather use Kicad because it's open source software, but now I have a decent workflow in Eagle.

​

 
I've been trying to put together a simple voltage inverter PCB for my fuzz builds.
It should be the easiest thing in the world but even with the pedal specific libraries I've installed I'm having a lot of trouble adding pads, traces etc.

In the past I've taught myself several 3d modelling apps, Photoshop, PHP etc.

I'm absolutely stumped by PCB design. I appreciate the free tutorials but I need to learn the theory behind ground planes, vias etc in order to design anything.

The apps are so complicated. A million parts, unintuitive interface etc.

End of rant .
 
vigilante398 said:
Whoops, I promised a library and forgot to post the link. I didn't make this, I got the library from rullywow years ago, but apparently my dropbox is the only place to find it anymore.

Click to expand...
Hey thanks man! Just downloaded diptrace and started messing around and I already like it more over eagle. I’m sure eagle is very capable and the integration with fusion is cool but I need simple and easy
 
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