How to design boards that work the first time

[@leandroiwanski6928]

Great work. I am an experienced hardware / manager in a R&D company and I adopted your training courses as introduction for every new hardware engineer I hire. Your work has probably saved me a lot of man hours so far and will keep on doing.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you Leandro for very nice words :) I am very happy you found the courses useful :)

[@ravipatel9797]

Great video Robert. I actually started doing layout because of your KZbin videos. I also ended up buying your course. One thing I would add is, if one is able, to have a second set of eyes take a look at the design. Even the simple act of questioning intentions by someone else and having to explain it will help uncover potential problems. I speak from personal experience.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much Ravi :) PS: Absolutely agree with second pair of eyes or someone to talk to.

[@samuellourenco1050]

Loved the "build simple test circuits" idea. Modularizing the design helps reducing the development costs. Already did that once, by separating the pre-reg DC-DC stage and the final regulator stage, on a test design for a power supply, into individual boards. It is also a great way to isolate issues and its causes.

[@tuttocrafting]

Glad to know that i'm not the only one that print on paper the PCBs and the footprints! (I also 3d print them in some case) I'm a DIY guy and I've made lot's of mistakes! (What i've learnt is from youtube)

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you TuttoCrafting

[@va-josefranciscomontoya866]

Unless the PCB CAD system is integrated with the mech CAD platform, paper models is a must! Since they're drawn 1:1, we had a good idea if all parts can fit on the board. A styrofoam underneath the printed layout serves as your cushion for those component pins.

[@BimaNugrahaSanusi]

It's so generous of you to post this video from the Altium Summit. Thank's a lot.!

[@yaghiyahbrenner8902]

I bought the simple course and it was really really good, I did a small 50x50 dsp board instead of the power supply tutorial and it worked first time. (I had no previous Altium experience)

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much Yaghiyah. I am very happy you liked the course and it helped you :)

[@yaghiyahbrenner8902]

I'm making plans for the high speed course as well. I hope you run a discount soon I will be very happy to jump into the complex topics.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you :) Just send me an email, we do have some discount coupons.

[@yaghiyahbrenner8902]

will send you a PM.

[@Aguevara29]

Perfect presentation, perfect teacher, it's always good see you Robert!

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much Angel :)

[@ВасилийДанилов-е7щ]

Thank you very much, Robert for sharing your experience with us!

[@EveryThingTechet]

Long time Robert!!!!! Great to see you back in action.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you Radiant :) Thank you for keeping watching the videos :)

[@rabiariaz2112]

Thank you so much for your videos! I have learnt a lot from you. Please keep up the good work.

[@sergeyivanov3453]

Nice to see you again Robert! Keep recording your videos! It really helps.

[@ВасилийДанилов-е7щ]

1. Besides of doing paper board I'm also doing a paper enclousure - for example when designing wearable electronics it helps to understand where buttons should be located, how it feels in the hand and is it small enough. 2. When checking schematics I always ask my colleagues to check it for me - it gives another point of view. It is escpecially helpful to have an opinion from software developer or a person who will assemble the board (if it is not automatic) 3. It is useful to mark parts in the library that are worked already as "approved" or some kind of it. So using part from such library will save some time and give confidence.

[@RobertFeranec]

3. We do it too. 2. That is sometimes difficult - especially if people would need to read tons of documentation, but if possible, we do it too (e.g. if both engineers have designed boards with same CPU before) 1. I like that

[@fernandocezar3348]

Amazing content, I'm a beginner hardware design, you are helping me a lot!

[@itzalchemy1846]

What a great video. Literally went crazy trying to figure out what was wrong with my first real board because I broke rule number 2.

[@braincodec1411]

Another great video Robert! I think this is a very important topic too. Make an accurate 3D model of the PCB can also help to avoid errors ;)

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you BrainCodec. Thank you :) PS: awesome pictures on your twitter. I especially love the rendered PCB: twitter.com/braincodec/status/915641382185918469

[@andreikarakozov2531]

Great, just great presentation! Many thanks from beginner hardware engineer!

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much Andrey. I am very happy you liked it :)

[@RandyClemmons]

It was a pleasure to meet you at Altium 2017 Live in San Diego, CA. Thank you for sharing

[@RobertFeranec]

It was awesome meeting you Randy. Unfortunately I could not see your presentation as I had to leave after the first day. But I was thinking, that maybe if it would help to your library software, I would introduced you to SnapEDA, they have a big library of symbols, footprints and 3d models of many components. Maybe you could somehow connect your Parts software ( pcbparts.blogspot.com/ ) to their library www.snapeda.com/ so people can import not only part information, but also symbols and footprints. Drop me an email if you think that could be something helpful for your software.

[@forestfolks]

Thanks for sharing this Robert. These are great tips!

[@Cyneathra]

Hello Robert, Just for information, I watched many videos of you on KZbin and I am your student on Udemy, bought your courses.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much Volkan.

[@thatradkid]

can you add more detail about how to cutout footprints? is it just printing it out 1:1 and matching it with the physical chip? also i love this video is very thorough and worth the watch!

[@RobertFeranec]

Yes, you are correct. It is to print the footprints at 1:1 and matching them with physical chip. PS: Kevin, thank you very much for nice words. I am very happy you liked this video :)

[@roymoran1151]

Wow. Great ideas here.

[@geizer99]

Great stuff, Robert! Definitely worth waiting for. Same for the board factory tour video - so many things to learn and watch out for. One of the most valued time-investments of the paper cutout is the assurance that the mechanical mounting aspects and board-enclosure matches precisely even before the actual smaller components are verified. I always uncover some design issue(s) with this process. It seems that you've studied Murphy's Laws (perhaps even added one or two to the collection) :-)) Thanks!!!!

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you geizer99 :) Yep, completely agree :)

[@mdchethan]

Thank you RF, very useful tips.

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you very much Chethan :)

[@navidabedi6883]

hi...thank you for ur good videos what is the best simulator name??

[@kfirmaymon84]

Thanks, as always it's very appreciated and useful to me

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you kfirmaymon84

[@MrAj198]

Watch at 1.5x speed, perfect.

[@incodewetrust8862]

We are 10k interested good work. Thank you.

[@efox29]

Very good! I love this. How is Altium simulation ?

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you efox29 :) I do not simulate in Altium :)

[@Yotanido]

Actual start: 7:25

[@mohammadrezakhalaj9128]

Thank you for tips, I want to add a step to your speech :), when you want to put the component on the board, put them step by step, By example put the power section component first then check your power voltage is fine or not, after that you can go to next step to sodering cpu,...

[@RobertFeranec]

This is exactly what I used to do when it was possible. Just wait a little bit and sooner or later the time will come .. the time when you will need to build the whole board at once. I remember when it happen to me - it was after one project, where I spent one whole week assembling a board and when I finished it I was convinced, that I am not going to do this anymore, not only because it took so long, but I had to be extremely careful, because I could actually make more mistakes then in assembly house. So, since then we always assemble the whole board at once.

[@nielspaulin2647]

Excellent!

[@carlosdiaz4535]

Thanks for share this video!

[@KARTHIKEYAN-py7xd]

Robert sir.. Thank you for ever.. Since in this video each & every points are very very valuable to everyone. And i have one question - If u r using ICD stackup planner? for to construct ur board stackup with proper di-elec constant,material thickness and impedance, also regular stocked materials depends on ur favourite manufacturers... (because, already u know slightly.. whom uses which materials) and then send it to the board house for ur requested stackup as u like/query (or) If u r not using.. Why? ... Pls reply... Because this question is long time in my mind to ask u... Thank u for seeing u at the start of the october.. I'm happy now...

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you KARTHIKEYAN .V I am not using ICD stackup planner, never really needed it. I use very similar stackups between projects and if I need a new one or if I need to adjust something, I talk to the PCB house directly.

[@KARTHIKEYAN-py7xd]

Thank you robert sir, for ur reply to me... Because i'm one of ur student as well as ur follower at offline via youtube videos, fedevel pages and each & every golden words from ur mouth. Thank u once again.

[@strictnonconformist7369]

I’m laughing at the guy that was laughing at your paper cutout sanity checks: paper is stupidly cheap, not doing a stupidly cheap sanity check can be stupidly expensive.

[@adrianfornaso5147]

Hi Robert, I wanna ask you about which software you recommend for doing circuit simulation. Currently I started with a project, it is a Simple Switchmode Lead-Acid Battery Charger for industrial appliction. I was using LTspice and Proteus at faculty but, I am looking for something more widespread use in real industry. Maybe you can talk a little about your experience with circuit simulations or maybe you have done already a video bout that topic and I haven't noticed yet I was watching your videos about hardware design with Altium and they were pretty useful. Kind regards

[@RobertFeranec]

I am not sure what kind of simulation you mean. I only simulate mostly DDR memories and I have used Hyperlynx and Cadence Sigrity software for it.

[@adrianfornaso5147]

Would be like general purpose simulation, for example the circuit I want to simulate and analyze has these three stages: a voltage loop control and state control logic, a sweetchmode controller, and a output power stage. I was checking reviews about different tools but I wasn't sure at all which one is more used by engineers in the electronic industry for doing general purpose simulations. I found OrCAD PSpice, I will start trying with this one.

[@adrianfornaso5147]

I meant general purpose simulation. For example the circuit I want to analyze has these three stages: a voltage loop control and state logic control, a sweetchmode controller, and a output power stage. I was checking reviews about different tools but I wasn't sure about which one is more used by electronics engineers in electronic industry for doing general purpose simulations. I found OrCAD PSpice and NI Multisim so I will check testing the first one.

[@robertohurtado6458]

Hi Robert! i got a question, i migrate to Altium because i need to design a fat 4mm pcb with some milling. Im trying to import 3D boddy but the pcb in Altium only let me to select one face, i want to make the PCB exactly as my 3D step model, any suggestion?

[@RobertFeranec]

I am not sure what you mean by "PCB exactly as my 3d step", but maybe you would like to adjust Stackup? Try Design -> Layer Stack Manager

[@robertohurtado6458]

@@RobertFeranec thanks for your response, i want to make something like this imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/8804/zldAcs.png unfortunatelly LSM dont work with closed shapes... any suggestion?

[@RobertFeranec]

@@robertohurtado6458 I would noted this in manufacturing notes, however, I am not really sure if this is possible to do directly in Altium.

[@robertohurtado6458]

@@RobertFeranec thanks! how is the best way to make this notes? in a 3d draw? better question, how is the professional way to do?

[@RobertFeranec]

@@robertohurtado6458 we place all the notes into one layer in PCB, so when a person is manufacturing our PCB and when they open our PCB documents, they will immediately see our notes. However, you can also do a separate document e.g. if you are using Altium, you can use Draftsman

[@KJC2000]

Thank you a lot!!

[@FromStep]

Hi Robert, it is very good video, and i want to say, what i to stady your OrCad cource now YoooHoooo:))))

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you :)

[@kiranjotsingh4040]

good job

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you Kiranjot :)

[@phungphamvan454]

thanks for the video. I wish there was English sub

[@msdesignru]

Great title pic ))

[@RobertFeranec]

:D ... my own mistake on my first x86 board 12 years ago :) I have learned to check pin numbering the hard way .. but as I heard from others, I am not the only one :D

[@msdesignru]

Robert Feranec haha, yes, you are definitely not the only one

[@msdesignru]

Robert Feranec good presentation for beginners, love it

[@RobertFeranec]

Thank you msdesign :)

[@gharbisalem1254]

I did not follow rule number 3 , did not triple check my footprint and I had to design another adapter board to correct the footprint (mirror) , and i had to avoid installing another IC for the same problem. I think this should be my reference before designing any board espicaly complex ones which is my case .

[@ats89117]

Excellent presentation and I'm guessing it was very well received, but I hope you didn't give it in your undershirt! ;-)

[@RobertFeranec]

ats89117 :D I had to laugh on your comment :D No, no white T-Shirt (which I normally wear in the videos). Actually some people told me it is unusual to see me from waist down, as they normally only see my head and arms :D

[@REALIVH]

always make prototype and test all functon before make the real one.