Questions tagged [pcb]
PCB is the acronym to Printed Circuit Board. A PCB is a carrier for the circuit's components and their electrical connections.
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Impedance of antenna and noise propagation
I would like to better understand how noise is radiated.
Suppose the circuit under study is a circuit with a DC/DC converter (source of noise) and an analog circuit (receiver) which is very sensible ...
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Altium: Duplicated instances of sheet symbols to create single PCB room
I'm wondering if the following is possible in Altium: To make my schematic easier to follow, I want to break up my sheet symbols into several different ones in the top level schematic, while not ...
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Soldering through-hole components when using ground/Vcc planes?
I'm designing my first PCB (2-sided) and can't quite understand. I'm going to be soldering the through-hole components myself such as the resistors. Typically, I put a leg through the hole, heat them, ...
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Hot glue for circuit boards
Is it a good idea/safe for circuit board components to be submerged in hot glue, in order to essentially "weatherproof" them to a certain degree? I don't believe the components will have the ...
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Fixing runaway sewing machine - blown transistor?
Disclaimer: I know very little about electronics, but I'm willing to learn as I go. My experience consists of playing with Arduinos and fixing a lamp by soldering a replacement switch. Please be ...
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Why are bottom silkscreens of PCBs mirrored?
I have looked at some PCB designs and noticed that the bottom-layer silkscreens are mirrored, and the top ones aren't. Why is that?
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Keyboard MCU choice [closed]
I am new to designing PCBs and this is my first project designing one by myself and although I am somewhat familiar with the concept of the keyboard matrix, I am unsure as to how to proceed, but I ...
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Jumping SMD buttons from one PCB to another
I have two PCBs: one is from a Lutron Pico, while another is from a a generic 2.4GHz wireless controller for some LED lights. I'd like to use the form factor of the Lutron Pico, but keep the ...
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What are these legs to connect to an IC called on a PCB?
I am designing my first PCB and it is going to be designed to plug into IC sockets on a motherboard (replacement modern RAM for retro computers).
I was wondering what to use for the legs. Looking ...
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I2C level shifter with only one reference
I need to translate a I2C SCL and SDA signal coming from another board with 3.3V to VDD (1.8V) on my board. So I don't have the possibility to use the 3,3V as a reference voltage. Only the 1.8V.
How ...
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Boost Converter doesn't work after simulation works fine
I designed a custom board and I just got it.
I checked the boost with Vin=14.4v( the operation required to be with battery)
Once the boost gets enabled, he is trying to take a current but in a strange ...
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How to dump firmware from a PCB with an MCU and FPGA and make sure all data is extracted successfully?
I have an old PCB that is no longer manufactured. I'd like to get the firmware out of it, but it looks like it has an MCU on it and an Altera Cyclone FPGA first generation. I'm still learning how the ...
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Troubleshooting a new PCB
I designed and got a PCB manufactured for the first time, and have soldered the component and powered it up. However it is not behaving as expected. I think I may learn something by everyone here for ...
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Transferring maximum power to multiplexed loads
I'm interested in creating a system driving 8 different loads from a single amplifier, at relatively high currents of few hundred mA
I wish to do this utilising a 8:1 multiplexer IC (8* spst), where ...
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Vias for through holes wires such as interconnects & jumpers
I'm going to have some PCB designs fabricated online. I'm quite new to it & I've never actually used KiCad as well for the designing PCBs the whole process. So I have a few questions.
I need ...
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Is it possible to make a PCB on paper?
Is it possible to make a PCB using paper? For example since graphite conducts power, can you get a sheet of paper, and draw a circuit on it using a graphite pencil?
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Removal of No-Clean Flux After Reflow
I'm looking for suggestions for fully removing no-clean, non-water soluble, liquid flux after reflow. Isopropanol alone is not doing the trick.
What I've found from my research:
Aggressive Flux ...
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Is it possible to make a PCB vibrate by pulsing traces?
I want to make a PCB vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies like in the TI's lens cleaning demo video.
Is it possible to make a PCB vibrate by pulsing the PCB traces at high frequencies?
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Maintaining voltage on PCB track
Suppose there is a really long track (not infinite) running over a 2-layer PCB with the bottom plane being the ground plane (just to complete the reverse path of the current). Now, on one end, 5V is ...
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Alternative inductor for evaluation boards kit DC2781A (using LT8316)
I want to build the DC2781A evaluation board by Analog Devices. Most of the passive parts I already have, so the building cost would be much cheaper for me. However, I wasn't able to find a ...
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Using both ground planes and ground pours on 4 layer PCB design
I'm currently working on a PCB design project which will be a four layer board. The inner two layers will be ground and the top and bottom will be signal. The board doesn't have any high-speed signals....
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Is a ground plane useful in this analog PCB scenario?
I'm planning to make a DAC amplifier circuit on a PCB, with a schematic similar to the following example:
The PCB will be composed of a one quad op-amp, some resistors, some caps, and connectors for ...
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Wheres does this PCB trace go?
I am checking a damaged engine ECU. Two traces were damaged during opening of the ECU.
I put a circle around the damaged traces. I need help with the left trace. Where does it connect to?
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Stopping electric arcs between layers in PCB - big PCB burn
Firstly, let me preface this with the fact that I am not interested in chastising the user, and I am not interested in looking at the original source of the arc (it was a tool accidentally breaching ...
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Reason for making tracks like this? Is this because of some EMC/EMI perspective? This is two layer ESP32 EVB board
What is exact reason for making this type of tracks? Is it because of some EMC/EMI advantage point or just some design habit?
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How to verify if SDRAM alternative is a direct drop in replacement?
I'm trying to verify whether the two SDRAM chips are complete drop in replacements of each other. I've verified the footprint, electrical characteristics and various timing parameters (namely CL, tRCD,...
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When creating a PCB symbol, do you have to include every pin of a MCU?
When creating a PCB symbol for schematics, what is the best practice when creating a symbol:
Do you include every pin of the MCU for completeness? For example - TMS570LC4357 uses a NFBGA(ZWT) 337 pin ...
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How to solder THT components that have pads close together
I am trying to solder some 2N7000 MOSFETs onto a PCB that I got manufactured, but the pads are very close together. When I try soldering the first leg on the MOSFET, I always end up shorting it to the ...
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Do I need decoupling capacitors in this schematic?
I just read about 'decoupling capacitors' to stabilize the voltage. I have some small voltage drops on this schematic when I made it into a PCB.
Can capacitors would solve the problem?
If yes, where ...
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Locating flash chip for dumping firmware
I'm trying to dip my toes into reversing and thought that dumping and inspecting the firmware running on this controller/pcb would be fun learning, however I'm having trouble locating the flash chip. ...
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Controlled impedance signals and non-adjacent reference planes
When routing controlled-impedance differential signals (100 MHz) in the middle of a PCB, do the reference planes have to be directly adjacent?
If no, is there any issue if there is another signal ...
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KiCad PCB: enlarging areas
I am using KiCad 6.0 for PCB drawing. I want to enlarge the drawn area I marked, is it possible to do this, and how do I do it?
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Which one is the GND and the VIN pin of this DC barrel? (LCSC# C145929)
I'm working on a project that involves using a DC power barrel to feed power for the entire circuit and I'm very new to PCB design in general. The problem I am having right now is that I can not ...
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PCB Silkscreen Marking
Today, I came on a PC board and the silkscreen marking have TG on it. What is the component for TG?
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Problems with my PCB design and microstrip traces and planes
I am making my first PCB design ever without any background for my graduation project about a Bluetooth jammer. I drew the circuit as a schematic and converted it to a PCB. Unfortunately, no company ...
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Maximum current through PCB traces
I am currently looking at a layout and I have a trace which has to sustain this current waveform (single pulse) according to the simulation:
As you can see, the current is passing through the trace ...
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Aluminum bus bars connection to PCB
I am going to use aluminum bus bars in a high-current PCB. What is the best technique to establish contact between the PCB and the bars?
I plan to make my own bars. The current is generally going to ...
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Protecting chemical for PCB epoxy casting
I would like to embed a PCB in epoxy to protect it. There are certain areas that should remain accessible/epoxy-free (e.g. USB socket, buttons).
I am looking for a chemical that I can apply to the PCB ...
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Switch between 2 USB connections (1 board with 2 female USB) without mechanical switch
I'm trying to create board with an RP2040 but there is only micro-USB, so the main idea is to replace it with USB-C and a 4-pin magnetic connector.
I would like to know if there is a way to select ...
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RC servo power switch not working properly
I am troubleshooting an ESP32 PCB I designed. Every function is working properly except the RC servo (Futaba HPS-AA701) I am using is not switched off when its ground is opened by a switch.
My PCB is ...
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FlatCAM drilling: CNC tip goes away
I want to have the holes of my CNC machine circuit board drilled. I'm using FlatCAM 8.993 while doing this. After creating my CNC output from the settings, the numbers given are far from each other, ...
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Understanding the orientation of USB 3.0 superspeed TX/RX lines and when to flip the lines
I'm working on a device that will have an onboard storage device with a USB interface, as well as two USB 3.0 type-A connectors (a plug and a socket), along with a USB hub ic. I'm using the Microchip ...
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Can this ground loop potentially damage my laptop or equipment?
From my research by the internet, they said that a ground loop can be eliminated by just plugging your devices into one AC source with the same ground. You will reduce the difference in electrical ...
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How to design PCB traces for high-current applications
I am trying to make a WiFi switch using the ESP32 MCU.
The PCB I am building will be switching high-power applicances, such as a kettle (which can draw around 14 A @ 230 VAC). The relay I chose is the ...
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What is this soldering tweezer like tool called?
I long ago used a tool in a workshop which looks very like a metal tweezer but unlike a tweezer its holder arms are normally tightly closed and opens when one pushes it. So it was used to hold lets ...
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Electrical connection between RP2040 and ESP-12F
I'm projecting a PCB board with a Raspberry RP2040 and the WiFi module Ai-Thinker ESP-12F (it is the only available from my PCB provider) following the official documentation, but I have some doubts ...
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Bypass broken potentiometer in headphone
My headphone's volume control is broken so I am getting audio only on the left speaker. I have ordered a replacement but it's going to take a few days to arrive. Seeing this question, I had some hope,...
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Is there a way to change a resistor on the PCB?
I have a problem. I am making a PCB design which will be used for different applications.
There is a part of the circuit that, depending on the application of use, will use a different resistor value (...
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PCB assembly/mounting components service [closed]
I am looking for advice from experienced people since I am new to PCB design. I have designed a PCB which is a heart rate wearable device based on Arduino Zero board.
I have a small PCB for the Heart ...
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Stripping down this SVG diagram to be a footprint in KiCad
This is a continuation of this question:
Trouble finding/creating footprint for a specific switch (SP10T) in KiCAD
I have an SVG diagram of a SP10T switch, from which I would like to create a ...
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