Mi sono convertito da tempo a Kicad... anche se effettivamente ho un po' di nostalgia per Eagle...
Ciao,
Mi sono convertito da tempo a Kicad... anche se effettivamente ho un po' di nostalgia per Eagle...
Un ottima scelta resta EasyEDA e passa la paura.... ho visto nell' ultimo video che persino Rosario by NE Lab lo usacicocri ha scritto: ↑lun 16 mag 2022, 14:13 Come detto in presentazione, anni fa utilizzavo Eagle, poi ho ripiegato su Diptrace che mi è apparso più intuitivo per lo sbroglio e realizzazione del pcb, da giovane, a scuola, utilizzavo orcad.... mai provati altri.
Interessante questo post, che sprona nel provare altro.... appena ho un po di tempo![]()
Profile photo for Robert Feranec
Robert Feranec
Motherboard designer, founder of FEDEVEL Academy, Schematic & PCB Design Courses4y
To become a PCB designer, what must I study/learn?
I am not 100% what you mean by PCB Designer. Do you mean just a Layout engineer or Hardware Design engineer? Maybe this can help you.
You need to work on real projects and get real experience
There are no shortcuts. Many people think, they can jump from Arduino to PC Motherboard design (would not be that fantastic?. In reality, you need to practice.
So, start with simple projects. This will help you to learn how to avoid all the beginners mistakes (e.g. connecting RX and TX the other way round ... yep, we all were there). When working with simple circuits, you will also start understanding how these simple circuits work … that is very important for more complex designs.
Background in Electronic
This may be difficult for some people, but in many situations I found it very useful, that I went to University and we had all (for me quite difficult) subjects about electromagnetic fields, microwaves, semiconductors, … And I can tell you, there were times when I had no clue what they were talking about. However, having at least some understanding about electromagnetic fields can help you to imagine what is happening on your PCB. There may be times, when you may think, that you would like to explain others why you placed the component certain way or why you routed a track so complicated .. but then you may think, that you may look weird, so at the end, you just keep it for yourself
Understand how basic components work
Especially transistors and diodes. Again, we had it all at University and at that time I had no idea how I am going to use it, but it helps you to understand how your schematic is going to work. Pretty much, every engineer was there …when you built a transistor circuit which should 100% work … and it just didn’t. It was because transistors have some parameters and properties and therefore in some situations these components may behave completely differently as you would expect.
Do not forget, that these basic components are inside chips and therefore, anything you are connecting to chip pins is going to be connected to transistors and diodes …. and the circuit inside the chip may influence your circuit which is outside of the chip.
Read Design guides
This is how I learned a lot of practical knowledge (especially how to do layout). However, this point may be very tricky for hobbyist or self learners as the best design guides are from the big chip manufacturers and are under NDA (this means, normally you can not access them). The way to see these design guides is to get a job in a company which is designing boards with the chips.
However, there are still some documents which you can find useful (e.g. google for "imx6 design guide", nice reading).
Fixing / Repairing / Debugging boards
This is how I learned most about interfaces and how they work. To be able to fix a complicated issue, you must totally understand the circuit. When trying to fix something, it forces you to search and read all the documents about specific topics.
And then, remember the feeling when you are sure that you have THE solution… and you try it …. and it doesn’t work … but then you come up with another idea which you are 100% confident that this is THE solution .. and it doesn’t work …. again. The circle of life of an engineer
(Are you sure you still would like to design boards?
)
I am just kiddingI love the feeling when the board works!!!!
Then, find a good job. Find a job where you can move from junior engineer up to senior engineer. Select the right company, right projects, after year you become better .. after 3 years good and after 5 years, you feel quite confident …
I hope this helps,
- Robert