Harness the power of teams to get projects done faster. Supported by Altium 365 platform you can create and work on projects with your team or invite other community members to work with you on the design. You can also add your own custom parts and mechanical components. Placing components in CircuitMaker designs is as easy as searching by manufacturer part number or by design parameters.
CUSTOM PCB FREE
Also, with no commercial clause restrictions, you are free to earn revenue with your design.ĬirucitMaker is built on a community library with hundreds of thousands of components, all backed by the comprehensive, realtime Octopart database.
CUSTOM PCB FULL
With CircuitMaker, you get the full power of 16 signal layers plus 16 plane layers, and no restrictions to the PCB dimensions.
CUSTOM PCB SOFTWARE
Using this technique you will have a board that you can be rightly proud of.Typically, free EDA software comes with design restrictions that render it useless for any real project. You could not get better if you were IBM.
CUSTOM PCB PROFESSIONAL
Not bad for a professional quality double sided PCB with plated through holes, solder mask on both sides, and silk screen printing on both sides.
As an example, for a board measuring 100 x 75mm they will charge about US$38 (as at Sept 2013) including postage to Australia and you will get ten boards for that price. Also, here are some more comments on PCB fabricators.īoth ITead Studio and Seeed's prices are good, they are fast and they will ship via standard air post which is cheap (I hate wasting money on international couriers). Other potential fabrication houses are listed here. I use ITead Studio Prototyping Service and Seeed and I am happy to recommend either of them but I have also heard good reports about Futurlec and Gold Phoenix. The bad part is that it takes a few weeks before you get them in your hands. No drilling, cutting, chemicals and mess. The best part of modern PCB fabrication is the fact that it is so easy - you just send off your design via the Internet and back come the boards. If you have never heard of the Gerber format you should refer to this short description. The output from Eagle should be a set of Gerber files which can be sent to almost any modern PCB fabricator who will make the board and send it back to you. His paper can be downloaded from his website. Jones has created an excellent tutorial on the ins and out of PCB design. This is a schematic and the resulting board design:ĭavid L. Old hands maintain that an autorouter is not as good as an expert human, and they are probably right, but the autorouter certainly does a better job than non expert me. Well, not quite, you might have to rearrange components and tracks, but Eagle does 95% of the work. Having done that you lay out the components on the PCB and just click on the autorouter button. The schematic drawing capability in Eagle is rather primitive and its main use is just to enter the schematic into the software. For example, Eagle defaults to a rather narrow track width and they provide some guidance for altering it. Sparkfun also provide a good hints tutorial that is worth reading. You only really need to do the first two tutorials.
CUSTOM PCB HOW TO
How to create a custom footprint and part in Eagle PCB (for the more sophisticated).The basics of laying out a PCB with Eagle.Getting started with Eagle PCB and capturing a schematic.One of the best comes from SparkFun in three "volumes": Cadsoft provide a tutorial but other people also provide some good how-to guides. The last restriction can be a bit limiting but you can get a lot in that size.Įagle has its own unique way of operating but after a while it becomes quite natural to use. The free version limits you to one schematic page (generally not a problem), just two layers (also not a problem) and a maximum size of 100 x 80 mm.
But, best of all, Cadsoft are kind enough to provide a limited version for free. Eagle is reasonably popular and you can find a lot of support for it on the Internet. Then, based on the schematic, the software can generate the PCB. Most software packages require you to draw the circuit first. If you are keen you can find other software and PCB houses, but this method works for me. It summarises one approach to creating the perfect PCB. This article is aimed at the hobbyist who wants a custom PCB for their latest creation and does not want to pay the earth. But this is the Internet era - just send off your design and get a professional result back. You could still etch and drill your own board, and that would be great if you like wearing horsehair shirts. There is a lot of good software out there and any number of PCB fabrication houses who are eager for your business, even though it is only one PCB that you want. Creating your own, professional quality printed circuit boards, is not as hard, or as expensive, as you would think.