made my first PCB, doesn't work

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,788
maybe i'll make my next one PTH!
You probably mean through hole; PTH means plated through holes and is usually beyond the capabilities of most DIYers.
I also saw tons of SMD Soldering video i had to try it!
Soldering SMT devices without a hot air tool is one thing, doing rework on anything with more than 2 pins will be painful with a soldering iron.

maybe i'll desolder the IC and try it on a breakout board :?
I'd recommend troubleshooting in place to avoid the aggravation of removing it without destroying it and/or your board. Lifting pads/traces is easier than you think.
 

Thread Starter

kam hagh

Joined Nov 7, 2015
60
You probably mean through hole; PTH means plated through holes and is usually beyond the capabilities of most DIYers.
Soldering SMT devices without a hot air tool is one thing, doing rework on anything with more than 2 pins will be painful with a soldering iron.

I'd recommend troubleshooting in place to avoid the aggravation of removing it without destroying it and/or your board. Lifting pads/traces is easier than you think.
ok, After i touched the output trace of my circuit with my arduino's 5v out it still gave no response, going to solder it so i can check with multimeter and be sure!
 

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kam hagh

Joined Nov 7, 2015
60
Soldered it to 5v and now use no regulators, still doesn't work, programmer doesn't responder! Maybe I fried my chip! i don't want to go trought this again but i guess I'll just make another and order some other parts :( I did the IC soldering super quick and touched the ic and it was cold, but after that i did drop solder on the silicon part so i guess that killed it!
 
If your making the PCB's then R4 is suspect without a solder mask. (trace between resistor)

How are you going to solder the headers? I'm assuming that your traces are on the "component side" of the board. The headers probably should be SMT.

You can layout as double sided with one side essentially reserved for "jumpers", but with the SMT board most of your traces would be on the "component" side.
 

Thread Starter

kam hagh

Joined Nov 7, 2015
60
If your making the PCB's then R4 is suspect without a solder mask. (trace between resistor)

How are you going to solder the headers? I'm assuming that your traces are on the "component side" of the board. The headers probably should be SMT.

You can layout as double sided with one side essentially reserved for "jumpers", but with the SMT board most of your traces would be on the "component" side.
Yeah, I forgot to mirror my through hole componends so I soldered them from top! It was hard but not impossible!

I guess I should just order double sided but I'm worried about drilling :S. But I will make one with jumpers next time! Going to make another tomarrow, I hate acids :S
 
I sent boards away to get made and got back a mirror image. I never checked the article. I was able to use the board with a few minor jumpers and switching the places of the NPN and PNP transistors.
 

DerStrom8

Joined Feb 20, 2011
2,390
There's another shorting opportunity in the PNP transistor.

When designing PCBs ALWAYS try to avoid routing traces at right angles. That's very poor practice, and can often lead to cracking and/or poor performance.

Make sure you give the DRC some clearance rules to keep traces a good 10-20+ mils away from other traces and pads. Make sure to run the DRC after routing.

Always lay out your board so that the connections between components are as short as possible, and keep the number of connections as low as possible.
 

Thread Starter

kam hagh

Joined Nov 7, 2015
60
There's another shorting opportunity in the PNP transistor.

When designing PCBs ALWAYS try to avoid routing traces at right angles. That's very poor practice, and can often lead to cracking and/or poor performance.

Make sure you give the DRC some clearance rules to keep traces a good 10-20+ mils away from other traces and pads. Make sure to run the DRC after routing.

Always lay out your board so that the connections between components are as short as possible, and keep the number of connections as low as possible.
Yeah, it was my first PCB, at least I learned to not make the same mistakes next time :) I'll also route them manually, I used autorouter because routing manually sounded impossible to me but I'll try it!

and yes, the pins 5,6,7 should be only connected to MOSI, MISO, SCK they're only for programming the chips becuase I can't plug smd into a breadboard! will use trough hole next time anyway!
 

DerStrom8

Joined Feb 20, 2011
2,390
Yeah, it was my first PCB, at least I learned to not make the same mistakes next time :) I'll also route them manually, I used autorouter because routing manually sounded impossible to me but I'll try it!

and yes, the pins 5,6,7 should be only connected to MOSI, MISO, SCK they're only for programming the chips becuase I can't plug smd into a breadboard! will use trough hole next time anyway!
Ah yes, good point about the autorouter. I have NEVER had good luck with an autorouter, even after setting the rules. They don't even come close to what a human brain can do, and it almost always leads to disaster. Routing by hand is an art, and sometimes is a bit tricky to learn, but ultimately it is well worth the trouble! ;)

Matt
 

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,788
I have NEVER had good luck with an autorouter, even after setting the rules. They don't even come close to what a human brain can do, and it almost always leads to disaster.
I've found this to be the case with the free ones.
Routing by hand is an art, and sometimes is a bit tricky to learn, but ultimately it is well worth the trouble!
Couldn't agree more...:cool: I review my PCB layout several times to make sure I've made it easy to etch before I'll consider transferring to a board.
 

Thread Starter

kam hagh

Joined Nov 7, 2015
60
So, I made all my components through hole and used manual routing!

In case your wanted to look :) I just used this schematic for practice, I'll etch one when I wanted to make something real and manually route it :)
Maybe I'll really make that ArduPlant , for now I need to order some parts :S
+ I'll have to add some features for battery etc, it will make it complicated :)
 

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DerStrom8

Joined Feb 20, 2011
2,390
So, I made all my components through hole and used manual routing!

In case your wanted to look :) I just used this schematic for practice, I'll etch one when I wanted to make something real and manually route it :)
Maybe I'll really make that ArduPlant , for now I need to order some parts :S
+ I'll have to add some features for battery etc, it will make it complicated :)
Well that's much better, though I still see some room for improvement:

2015_11_15_14_30_52_forum.allaboutcircuits.com_attachments_forgetaboutsmd_pdf.94730_.png

Circled in blue are areas where the traces are longer than they need to be, or where you can combine them to reduce the number of traces.

Also, you should restrict your traces to 45 degree angles. I'm seeing a lot of crazy angles, it's just better practice to keep them at 45 degrees.
 

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,788
Could also simplify the routing for the transistor by rotating it 90 degrees clockwise and rotating R4 counterclockwise and moving it to the left of IC1. If the pin assignments on the 2x3 header aren't fixed, rearranging them could simplify routing to IC1.
 

Thread Starter

kam hagh

Joined Nov 7, 2015
60
Well that's much better, though I still see some room for improvement:

View attachment 94735

Circled in blue are areas where the traces are longer than they need to be, or where you can combine them to reduce the number of traces.

Also, you should restrict your traces to 45 degree angles. I'm seeing a lot of crazy angles, it's just better practice to keep them at 45 degrees.
ok :) I'll work a bit on it!
 
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