PCB Design a Tiny Arduino In Altium CircuitMaker

Important Informations before embarking on this course.

This Lecture shows you how to download Altium CircuitMaker. Once it has been downloaded I guide you through the Installation Process. It is very easy and simple to get started in Altium Circuit Maker.

So you got Altium CircuitMaker installed right? So how do get components to your schematic. It is very simple as shown in this video. Using the vast Octopart Library you are able to search for almost any part you design. Most parts come with 3D body included.

This Lecture shows you how to wire up the schematic diagram of the Arduino Nanite. Nothing can be easier than dragging a wire from point A to B so after watching this lecture you will easily have your schematic hooked up in no time!

Just like how everybody has a unique fingerprint or some sort of identification, so should the components you place for your PCB. We apply designators to give each component a unique ID. Once all the components are designated to their unique ID's we compile the project to see if there are design errors. If there are errors, then we can see clearly in our design on how to fix it. Reducing these errors allow to reduce errors in our final prototype as well as reduce time to market.

Now that we are in the PCB design phase of the course, you now start to see the circuit start to transform into 3D space. We import the components that we drawn in the schematic document into the PCB document where we start by defining the shape of our board PCB.

Correct placement of components is just as important as how you route the PCB. This is why we place emphasis on the placement of component so we save time in the routing process. This lecture shows you how to go about placing your components of the Tiny Arduino in the PCB document.

To avoid having many iterations of your board being manufactured over and over again, we can perform Design Rule Check (DRC) to avoid any short circuit tracks and unrouted nets. As you can tell it is a very important step in the design phase of this project so you can have peace of mind when you send your board in for manufacturing.

Reasons for performing Design Rule Check?

Optimizing component placement is an important aspect of PCB design. It can save you money and time to market by simplifying the routing process. As mentioned above that placement of component makes it easier for autorouting and reduce the amount of contentions or unrouted nets from occuring. If there are contentions, it means that you have to manually route those nets in your design which can be tricky through a dense track density PCB.

Your circuit will not just work without wires that connect between components. This lecture shows you how to route tracks to various components on your PCB and then you circuit will be wired up.

We need to repeat the design rule check after routing since, the autorouter is not perfect. We need to eliminate these errors by performing a last Design Rule Check (DRC) on our Arduino Nanite PCB.

PCB Design Quiz

Once the routing is completed and the rules violations demolished, we can now send the Gerber and Drill files to the Local PCB manufacturer to get our PCB fabricated

You have your PCB, now what? Well you need to now populate your PCB with components so that you can start testing it. Wait... you don't have your component you say? Well to get your components you need to first generate your Bill of Materials which you can send to an Octopart Supplier and then procure your components.

Congrats on completing this course, if you want to further your PCB design skills then check out this lecture. It will tell you exactly how to enhance your productivity in the Altium Environment.