An Absolute Beginners Guide To Designing PCBs using Easy EDA - Make PCB From A Schematic

[@paulc9139]

50 Years in Electronics repair, never designed a PCB in my life, but my god I'm going to have a go after this video, thanks Richard

[@EETechStuff]

Excellent Richard! A lot of people are very intimidated by the thought of what seems to be a difficult process, but it has become so simplified in the last 10-20 years that I think most would be absolutely amazed at how inexpensive and easy it is. Especially compared to what we used to do back in the day, using tubs of acid and and drawing the traces manually. Although some retro hobbyists still like going down that old rabbit hole for some reason. BTW, the techniques you showed are excellent, and very similar to what's done in other PCB design software.

[@IlBiggo]

Funny that you're using JLPCB's software to prepare a PCB for PCBWay :) As you've surely noticed, you can order PCBs from JLPCB through EasyEDA. But of course, having the option to choose a manufacturer is a nice thing. I'm actually surprised that EasyEDA doesn't lock you into ordering from JLPCB. Kudos to the guys for not being greedy! One interesting thing to do is make the autorouter draw the PCB and then edit it. For some reasons, I don't like VIAs. Most of the times I can rotate or move components around to have shorter traces, or less jumping from a side of the PCB to the other. EasyEDA will notify you of bad rerouting or overlapping tracks, so it's easy to design a cleaner PCB. Or, in my case, probably mess it up but still have a functioning result :D

[@Foobar_The_Fat_Penguin]

A perhaps interesting alternative to EasyEDA for beginners could be Fritzing. It's OpenSource and available for Win, Mac, and Linux. Unlike other software, it doesn't start with the schematic, but with the breadboard layout. So if you're more practically oriented and already have a functioning prototype on a breadboard, you can just recreate it virtually in the software, then have it automatically create schematics and PCBs from that. KiCAD would be another OpenSource program that appears to be in widespread use and which I have used to make my first tiny PCBs not so long ago. It also did the job, although it looked to be a bit more complicated than EasyEDA or Fritzing. But even a complete moron like me could use it, so it's probably perfectly fine for normal people.

[@raagamparmar5602]

Yup. I began my PCB journey with Fritzing, and it is really easy to work with.

[@OIE82]

I have never heard of that software. I will look into it. Thanks.

[@eross21]

this was very helpful. i was getting hung up on the open nets. but now i see how you fixed that. thank you.

[@nigelfewster]

Thanks Richard your channel for me is one of the most interesting and educational I have come across on you tube. Have a good Christmas in the sun and I will be waiting in the wet and cold U.K. for the follow video on those pcbs.

[@geoffedwards189]

Thanks Richard! I am new at PCB creation. I have tried a couple of different design tools but haven't settled on anything yet. I will give Easy EDA a try. Best wishes.

[@Simon-mz7sf]

Thanks Richard. When time poor getting an excellent intro and how to like this goes a long way. Merry Xmas

[@willthomsen7569]

I’d love if you did more of these videos and design circuits more and more complicated to do bigger and bigger jobs from scratch where every piece fits and why

[@garrypowell1086]

Sorry Richard but the switch as designed shorts the battery from Vcc to ground. Otherwise I love the simplicity of EasyEDA. Love your work. All the best from Australia.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Really? Look at the schematic again 14:55 The positive end of the battery connects to Vcc permanently and the negative end connects to ground via the switch when pressed. To the best of my understanding the switch completes the circuit and powers the device. Where is the short?

[@SS-mj2mq]

Thank you for sharing this video it means a lot. I think you did a great job 👏👏👏happy holidays to you and a merry Christmas 👍⛄🌲🤗😁💯

[@brunorodriguesmaso]

Thank you Richard!

[@drumbyte]

Great presentation!

[@seansanders789]

Thank you for your video they are very helpful. I have a question I hope u can answer I'm very interested in learning electronic repair but don't know anything . Can u recommend some good books to read to get me started.Your videos are a huge help.But I do better when I can combined it with reading it helps me retain the info. I hope u see this message and can help me out have a great day.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Have a look on the LER discord server 😉

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya, thats a very easy way to make your pcb's nice

[@daz41262010]

brilliant video Richard :)

[@chrissmith7655]

Hi, many thanks enjoyed the info.

[@andymouse]

I started with EASYEDA but it was cloud based and painfully slow but it taught me enough to move to a professional tool called KICAD are you gonna hand solder the 0603 smd parts yourself ? I personally like to solder he 0805. Merry Christmas!.......cheers.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Yeah I can solder 0603 by hand- as I did on the prototype I made from veroboard. I can solder 0402 pretty good as well. Of course you could just make the schematic using 0805 resistors and capacitors instead

[@andymouse]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair wow I can't solder 0402 ! good on you !

[@Enigma758]

I want to continue to make single layer boards at home, but up my game by using PCB layout software (instead of making my own layout drawings using graphic tools). Does anyone have any recommedations for easy to use SINGLE LAYER design software?

[@romancharak3675]

@Enigma758 I make PCBs at home, both single a double sided. And, they look very professional, in my opinion. I use DipTrace (free version) to create my schematic drawings and PCB layout. Some hobbyist use KiCad software, which also has a free version.

[@Enigma758]

@@romancharak3675 I've been meaning to give DipTrace a try, now I will, thanks. The key for me is "easy" single sided design.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Use Easy EDA - it can also do single sides and multilayer. You select the number of layers when you set the size and shape of the PCB

[@Enigma758]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Unfortunately, if you attempt to select "1" layer, EasyEDA tells you that it's not supported. :(.

[@benjaminbeier4036]

The switch could have been rotated. Also I wonder if it was possible to layout this without any vias. Maybe you can upload the file for us to play with it. 😄 Really loved this video. It reminded me at my teenage years when I was exploring electronics and building mikrocontroller boards for robots. Nowadays (15 years later) I am a Sysadmin and rarely have time to play with PCB stuff.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Yeah I did think I should have rotated the switch but anyway I am just learning how to do this too

[@frankbaron1608]

to even up the spaceing, with the components selected, go to format, selectect distrbute horizontally

[@romancharak3675]

Hello Richard. Don't you need a pad for soldering the ground wire from you speakers?

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

What speakers?

[@shagreobe]

I downloaded KICAD, and tried it out...think EasyEDA is simpler, have to dl it

[@anthonydenn4345]

Great video Richard, I really like the way you can position every part exactly where you want it on the board and the software does the rest, amazing. You don't have to meticulously layout everything right, like I expected it to be like. Might have to give this a go myself sometime 😀

[@I_hu85ghjo]

15:33

[@Blinkerd00d]

So... I have a few circuits for guitar pedals that are fairly large. The schematic is laid out, I just haven't had the time to go and finish the actual pcb layout. If you want to do another video that dives deeper into pcb layouts- I can send you one of them.

[@Blinkerd00d]

I do all of mine in EAGLE btw

[@nadeem6392]

xشكرا يا حج

[@SerenoOunce]

Worth noting do not place pads so close to the board edge. A design like this is likely to be rejected by these PCB makers.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I am sure your advice is good and correct, though in this case the design was accepted for production

[@AlvaSvensson-hd7nr]

Why are you blurring out your screen all the time? Are you trying to hide all those corn videos you have on your pc?

[@hamper3049]

Please, show the result.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I already did about two weeks ago kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4nKfaKkgduLaLc

[@hamper3049]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Thank you very much. I haven't seen this video yet.

[@markusvirtanen9163]

Using an autorouter?!?! Why? Route our own boards to ensure that design specks are met, please!

[@foxbat888]

Perhaps the routing is not critical for this project

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Why? Because this is, as I clearly stated at the start, a beginners guide for anyone who has never made a PCB before. I wanted to show how easy this is hopefully to encourage viewers who thought it was too complicated to give it a go instead and be really surprised to find they can actually do this. Sure there are more advanced and no doubt better ways to design PCBs and far more to learn about this topic before anyone can be considered an expert, but as a total beginners guide I honestly believe I succeeded created just that by showing how to do it the easiest way

[@markusvirtanen9163]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair OK, maybe you could do manual routing tutorial as a next video? As a professional PCB / Electronics Engineer I know how badly autorouter routes tracks and may cause abnormal functionality to the circuit board. And I always try to tell people that you learn electronics by doing it yourself and autorouter defeats that. You just don't learn how to layout your PCBs if you allow a machine to do that for you.

[@foxbat888]

You could let the auto router do the work and then correct the results where necessary

[@markusvirtanen9163]

@@foxbat888 Yes, that is also a good idea.

[@middleway1885]

Boop

[@Admin-md9pl]

cant hear for the friggen background music. crap

[@Admin-md9pl]

OOOps wrong video, sorry

[@spinynorman887]

You earned a dislike in the first 30 seconds. Want to guess why?

[@EETechStuff]

I'll take a guess...because the internet is the only place on planet Earth where, for some strange reason, people actually think they're entitled to get free stuff. And any creator who dares to attempt to get a tiny (and I mean tiny) income in return for sharing all their years of expertise, as well as expending the huge effort required to make this free content, risks getting those people upset. How'd I do?

[@Enigma758]

@@EETechStuff Exactly!

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

You were just having a hedgehog moment? I just checked the stats, although YT no longer show dislikes, I can still see them in analytics. This video currently has 266 likes and 6 dislikes. So that's 97.1% of viewers who clicked the buttons liked the video. The video has 3246 views at the same time so only 8.2% of viewers expressed an opinion, the other 91.8% of them obviously didn't care one way or the other 😋 I can never please everyone all of the time (well actually it seems sometimes I can as amazingly, to me at least, some videos have 100% likes) but as far as I am concerned 97.1% is good enough. Really though, why not reply and explain why I did earn a dislike in 30 seconds? Surely the path to improvement requires understanding of the problem in the first place. So let's talk about it, yeah?

[@EETechStuff]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Richard, he got upset when you said the video is sponsored. Apparently he thinks you shouldn't get even a tiny income for all of your expertise and hard work. Of course he would never tell his employer not to pay him for his time, but apparently other people should work for free.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

@@EETechStuff Probably true. Actually PCBWay are a big help in sponsoring the channel, both in financial support and providing free PCBs. I quite simply couldn't make the cheap test equipment projects and videos like this one without their sponsorship. I accept not everyone agrees with sponsor deals, I only make two PCBWay videos a month out of the twenty or so that I publish and I also get complete freedom to choose what I want to do in those sponsored videos, so I'm happy to stick with them, I have received offers from just about every single one of their competitors.