Need help learning board modeling.

Thread Starter

robp1956

Joined Jun 12, 2026
37
All this new stuff that I must learn I am looking for actually 2 things 1 is where to find help learning LTspice and taking what I have on schematic and making a board out of it. Never used any tools like this before. great but a steep learning curve to all of it.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,122
I recommend thinking about your end state, what you imagine doing in the future. Do you want to produce a new PCB once a week, or once a year? Or just once?

A time-saving tool is only worth learning if the time you save far exceeds the time to learn it.

LTspice is useful to even a casual hobbyist like me despite its learning curve. Making tweaks and adjustments is a lot easier in software than on a breadboard, IMO. (You'll definitely find other opinions on that here.) It's a great learning tool for understanding how your choices of component values can affect output. And the next step is often the breadboard, because real circuits don't always perform as they do in simulation. You can certainly skip from paper to PCB but be prepared for failed builds.

For me, the next step after the breadboard has not been a custom PCB but rather a build on a perf-board. I used general drawing software (which I was already quite familiar with) to work out the precise layout "on paper". I've made a handful of devices this way. In my most recent project I made 5 identical perf-board builds and swore I'd never do that again. Sizing, stripping and soldering all the wires drove me nuts. So I started to learn about tools to produce a PCB file for production.

Software such as Eagle can do simulation (so I hear, I've never used it) and take you all the way from a schematic to a finished board layout. You'll find proponents of Eagle here, as well as KiCad and a few others. Output that board layout in the right file format and you can send it off to get your PCB made. People here can recommend a half dozen such shops. I didn't get very far on my learning curve before hitting some walls and bailing out. If I had a few projects in the hopper, I'd jump back in and do the work.
 

Thread Starter

robp1956

Joined Jun 12, 2026
37
Well I'm going to be having to make a few over the next year or 2 something I am building will require by my count 5 boards. and those boards are going into a long term tool for my hobby and I would like to at least get my feet wet and learn some of the new tools. I'm an old paper and pencil guy that did a ton of math then built on protoboard and then having to make a circuit board was a much simpler process then.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,122
...something I am building will require by my count 5 boards...
If that were all you were ever going to do, I'd say you're on the bubble. It'd be hard to justify learning Eagle just for that. But as I said, my last build of 5 boards had me vowing to never do that again "the hard way".

I can't really recommend Eagle because I haven't done much with it myself but I know a lot of folks here recommend it. I believe KiCad may be the leading alternative but there are others as well. It may take a little experimentation, combined with advice from the experts here, to find the one that suits you.

The topics of PCB design software and PCB fabrication shops are both recurring and popular here. A little searching will uncover a lot of collective wisdom.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,499
KiCad is a steep learning curve and very specific. You have to know the exact component to use with all of its parameters which will be in a pick library. There are those here that use it. So LTSpice for modeling, breadboard for testing, maybe a perfboard for further testing, and then there is the old make your own board by etching copper clad or Manhattan style. If all goes well as intended, then using CAD to optimize the board layout and having a board house make a run of several or a one-off board. Even then and at any step along the way be ready to deal with errors...
 
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