PCB art work and layout

PCB art work and layout

In this post we briefly discuss how the PCB of a selected project circuit schematic will be presented in various set ups so as to enable one to understand thoroughly for hassle free assembling of his/her favourite electronics project.

We have seen earlier that assembling a circuit schematic on a PCB is the sure shot way of successful project building work. The circuit elements are to be hooked up on PCB by soldering technique for optimum performance and longer lasting. As such PCB of the circuit diagram is an essential basic platform we should devote more attention on that.

PCB 

One has to design the circuit diagram on a copper clad board for the preparation of PCB. Copper clad board is the base for PCB. Copper layer is present as lamination over the non conducting Hylam type of board by which we create PCB by etching process. The etching process is called fabrication of PCB. 

As designing and fabrication of PCB are two different processes involving art work and layout design work of the relevant circuit diagram on the actual copper clad board. PCB designing can be done in two ways - one by hand and another is using PCB software.  Simple and small circuit designs can be done by hand. A few homemade projects can be designed in that way. Complicated designs can be easily and neatly done by using software. 

I prefer to design the PCB using popular software for simplicity, compactness, accuracy and neatness. You need not design PCB of the circuit for the projects described in this blog. I already made the design work and present here as ready made PCB designs. As such your job is just to transform the ready made design to a suitable size copper clad board. Fabrication (etching) of the PCB has to be done by you since mostly one or two pieces of the board only you are going to make. Drilling of appropriate holes on the board is one more job required to be done before starting assembling of the circuit diagram on PCB.

To make the process of assembling easier and simpler the following steps are described to understand the layout and design of the PCB.

a)    Overview of the board:

This is a comprehensive view of the PCB showing the copper track (actual inter connection) of the circuit elements that go into the board along with the placement/ location of the components on top of the board. This is a birds-eye view of the design all inclusive of track + components layout. This will be beneficial for the builder who wants to solder the circuit elements on PCB.

b)    Component layout:

Here the picture of the components positions placed on top side of the board is displayed. No track is visible here. This is to locate the components easily with clarity on PCB. This layout also helps you during assembling of the project. The size and shape of the circuit elements will be known to you by carefully observing this layout.

c)    PCB track:

This is actually the copper track (inter connection) of the circuit elements of the schematic of the project. It shows how connections are made one component to another or sometimes many using the copper track. One should compare the copper track with the circuit diagram and confirm the correctness of the PCB design. If there are any mistakes in the design it should be rectified before etching. Sometimes a small jumper wire may be required to make additional connections. All necessary precautions are to be taken care off. Finally this design has to be etched on copper clad board to obtain actual PCB. 

In the coming posts, how the PCB can be fabricated and important assembling hints that are beneficial to the builder will be discussed.