09_Week 9 (10.28) - entertainmenttechnology/Corn-MTEC2250-Fall2022 GitHub Wiki

Assignment #6: Design a PCB

Design a PCB to be fabricated by a PCB manufacturer (I will submit them to the manufacturer for you and the department will be covering the fees). Your design must be designed in KiCAD and meet the following requirements:

  • Choose a component you have access to that you would like to build a circuit around
    • If you no longer have your Arduino kit, you can design for an LED and a 220ohm resistor as we have plenty on campus
    • Examples include: LEDs, pushbuttons, potentiometer, piezo, photocell, or servo
  • Design a PCB using the component(s) with the intention that an Arduino will control your circuit
    • If you don't remember the circuit, you can look them up on Google or use the PDFs from last semester's MTEC1005 class here.
  • Your PCB must fit within 100x100mm and must have some board outline other than a square or circle shape

We will be selecting a color for all PCBs to be sent to JLCPCB as a class. Please fill out this survey with your color preference and we will order the color the majority of the class prefers.

If you use any of the standard components from MTEC1005, you can use the following schematic symbols and footprints within your KiCAD designs:

Component Schematic Symbol Name Footprint Name
Resistor R Resistor_THT:R_Axial_DIN0207_L6.3mm_D2.5mm_P10.16mm_Horizontal
LED LED LED_THT:LED_D5.0mm
Pushbutton SW_Push Button_Switch_THT:SW_PUSH_6mm
Potentiometer R_POT Potentiometer_THT:Potentiometer_Piher_T-16H_Single_Horizontal
Photocell D_Photo The footprint can be the same as an LED since the photocell also has two leads, though it won't show that way in the 3D model
Piezo Buzzer Buzzer_Beeper:Buzzer_12x9.5RM7.6
Servo Motor_Servo The servo isn't actually something that gets mounted to the PCB. You should make the annotation for the servo #M1 so it doesn't add to the PCB and instead add a 2.54mm pin header connector for you to connect your servo.

Submit your .kicad_pcb, .sch, and GERBER files, all zipped into one file, to me via DM on Slack prior to class on November 4th. If you don't, they will not be submitted to the PCB manufacturer in time.

Helpful notes:
I have recorded a prior version of this class's tutorial on KiCAD that you can watch as a refresher on what we learned in class:

For more information regarding the assignment, please see below. If you are trying to add multiple components to your PCB, check out this video for some tips.

To export your PCB to a GERBER file, following these instructions:

  • Open up your PCB file in KiCAD and go to File->Plot
  • Select a folder for your Output Directory at the top
  • Make sure only the following layers are selected for plotting:
    • F.Cu
    • B.Cu
    • F.SilkS
    • B.SilkS
    • F.Mask
    • B.Mask
    • Edge.Cuts
  • Click on Generate Drill Files
  • Click Generate Drill File in the new window that opens
  • Click Close
  • Click Plot
  • Go to the folder on your computer where you exported the GERBER files and zip that file to send to me via Slack.