Learn To Design Your Own Boards

Design a board in 15 hours. Step-by-Step tutorial based on Arduino project (Altium)

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 4.7

- After this course
- you will design your own Arduino like board.

What you'll learn

After this course

you will design your own Arduino like board.

* Requirements

* You will need Altium Designer software. If you are a college / university student
* ask Altium for a student license. In many countries the student license is free.

Description

Learning a basic board design is essential for everyone who would like to work in electronics or who would like to design electronic boards or products. Learning board design in the right software can open you door into many companies, help you to get a well paid job and can be used to design very complex and advanced boards.

Design a Real Board and Learn Essentials of Using Altium Designer

- Draw your own schematic
- Route your PCB and do layout
- Generate documentation needed to manufacture your PCB

Altium Designer is a Powerful Software

During this course you will learn how to use Altium Designer software. Altium Designer is a professional software used to design all kind of boards, from very simple ones to motherboards or servers. It is one of the most used software for electronic design. Learning Altium is useful for everyone planning or already working in electronics.

Contents and Overview

You will start with Arduino Uno reference schematic. You will learn how to re-draw the schematic, modify it, you will learn how to improve it and how to do PCB layout. The course videos are step-by-step and even if you are new in electronics or you have never used Altium Designer before, by repeating these steps, you will design your own board. By the end of this course, you will create all the necessary documents needed to manufacture the board.

Within 15 hours you will learn how to:

- Draw schematic, including tips for component selection and important circuits
- Create components, draw schematic symbols and footprints
- Place components into your PCB
- Route PCB and useful tips about layout
- Create 3D model of your board
- Create board variants with different components fitted / not fitted
- Create Bill of Material (BOM)
- Create assembly drawings showing position of components on the board
- Generate Gerbers, Pick and Place, Drill file and other files needed for manufacturing
- Prepare professional documents needed to manufacture your PCB and assemble your board
- Bring your board to life, flash firmware and run a simple LED Blinky example

For everyone interested, the manufacturing documents created during this course can be used to build your board. Simply use PCB manufacturing data to get your PCB, buy components from Digikey and solder them by yourself.

Enjoy this course :)

Who this course is for:

College / University students: During this course you will learn how to work in Altium Designer. Altium is one of the most used software in companies which are designing electronic boards or products. Knowing how to work in Altium can give you an advantage when applying for a job. As a college / university student, you may be able to get a free license of Altium Designer.
Junior / Senior hardware design engineers: During this course you will go through complete process of designing an electronic board. You will learn all the steps exactly the way as they are done in a professional company. After this course you will know everything essential to use Altium Designer in your job. This course can be very useful when you are starting with Altium Designer or when you are moving to Altium Designer from a different CAD system.
Beginners, Hobbyists: If you build your own electronic circuits using wires or breadboards and you have ever wanted to transfer your circuits into a real board or real product, this course can help you. During this course you will learn how you can design your own boards.

Course content

7 sections • 137 lectures

Drawing Schematic and Creating Libraries 79 lectures

Introduction Preview 00:55

What you will learn during this course Preview 02:10

Download Arduino schematic and start a new project Preview 02:38

Prepare to create ATMEGA328P component Preview 06:29

Create ATMEGA328P - Schematic symbol Preview 09:04

Create ATMEGA328P - Footprint Preview 13:16

Prepare to create ATMEGA16U2 component Preview 02:11

Create ATMEGA16U2 - Schematic symbol Preview 09:35

Create ATMEGA16U2 - Footprint Preview 17:49

How to update an existing component Preview 01:46

Create 10 pin female header Preview 14:25

Create 8 pin female header Preview 06:19

Create 6 pin female header Preview 05:27

Connect 10, 8, 6 pin headers Preview 02:49

Create 100nF capacitor Preview 18:29

About connecting power pins of microcontroller Preview 01:54

Create 10uF capacitor Preview 07:50

Create Ferrite Bead Preview 03:59

Draw power connections Preview 03:25

Create 1M resistor Preview 11:18

Create 16MHz Crystal Preview 14:27

Create 18pF capacitor Preview 01:57

Draw crystal circuit Preview 01:37

Connect power header Preview 05:51

Draw crystal connection and power for 16U2 Preview 04:01

Create ICSP header Preview 17:37

Connect ICSP header Preview 04:00

Placing net names Preview 04:10

Using schematic filter and schematic inspector Preview 02:42

Connecting rest of the IO connector signals Preview 03:47

Create 22 Ohm resistor Preview 02:21

About connecting CLOCK, RX and TX Preview 02:41

Create 1k Ohm resistor Preview 01:51

Connect UART signals Preview 02:13

Connecting ICSP1 header Preview 03:46

Creating 2x2 male header Preview 08:36

Connect 16U2 IO header Preview 01:54

About RESET circuit Preview 04:17

Creating BUTTON Preview 12:09

Create 10k resistor Preview 02:31

Creating DIODE Preview 14:19

Create AND gate Preview 12:21

Connecting RESET circuit Preview 06:17

Draw rest of RESET connections Preview 02:28

Creating 1x3 male header Preview 09:35

Connecting JP1 jumper and 16U2 RESET circuit Preview 06:15

Create 1x4 male header Preview 06:33

Connecting JP3 jumper Preview 01:46

Create Orange LED Preview 12:54

Calculating LED resistor Preview 03:26

Create 560 Ohm resistor Preview 01:46

Connecting LEDs to indicate communication Preview 01:15

Create and connect Green Power LED Preview 03:12

Connecting User LED Preview 04:15

Create +3.3V LDO regulator Preview 14:03

Connect +3.3V LDO regulator Preview 02:05

About power selection circuit Preview 01:05

Create 0R resistor Preview 01:45

Draw power selection circuit, about unfitted components Preview 04:29

Name some 16U2 nets and about pull up resistors Preview 02:36

Create 100k resistor Preview 01:40

Connecting 16U2 signals, GND pins, about UCAP Preview 02:41

Create 1uF capacitor Preview 01:50

Draw UCAP connection and name power & crystal nets Preview 03:06

About USB connector + Creating USB connector schematic symbol Preview 09:34

Creating USB connector footprint Preview 18:28

Connecting USB - Part 1 Preview 02:40

Create Varistor Preview 09:31

Connecting USB - Part 2 Preview 02:00

Creating 100uF capacitor Preview 11:33

Create 2.2uH inductor Preview 09:56

Connecting USB - Part 3 Preview 02:14

Add and connect User Button Preview 03:07

Create and connect PADs Preview 04:56

Create and add fiducials Preview 06:22

Create and add mounting holes Preview 09:42

Create and add DIP socket Preview 06:10

Create and add LINK (jumper) Preview 04:04

About PCB and Firmware component Preview 00:50

Finishing Schematic 6 lectures

Annotating, checking and browsing schematics Preview 06:59

Adding notes into schematic Preview 03:06

Finishing schematic: About Pages, Title Block and Parameters Preview 07:36

About components and BOM (Bill of Material) Preview 06:53

Update Altium Designer settings Preview 01:36

Importing Schematic into PCB Preview 04:52

PCB Placement 12 lectures

Change board shape, place mounting holes and main connectors Preview 08:52

How to start placement, place 328P MCU and DIP socket Preview 05:16

Change Altium settings, hide designators, setup grid, lock down components Preview 06:05

About placement Preview 07:18

Placement around 328P MCU Preview 03:07

Placement around 16U2 MCU Preview 04:36

Place components around USB connector Preview 04:17

Placing headers, jumpers and LDO regulator Preview 06:41

Placing buttons, 16U2 reset, LEDs Preview 11:15

Placing remaining components Preview 08:13

3D view of finished placement Preview 00:46

About paper model Preview 10:22

PCB Layout 20 lectures

Preparing for layout Preview 19:31

Routing long connections Preview 19:01

Routing short connections Preview 12:07

Routing power nets Preview 13:31

Routing ground net Preview 11:26

Checking if everything is connected Preview 03:18

Current status and about layout procedure for more complex boards Preview 02:39

Importing schematic changes into PCB Preview 04:10

Drawing power planes (polygons) Preview 17:40

Drawing ground planes Preview 04:41

More polygons, improving power tracks and power planes Preview 16:25

Improving layout Part 1 Preview 13:09

Improving layout Part 2 Preview 07:20

Improving layout Part 3 Preview 15:40

Improving silkscreen layer Preview 12:33

Adding gold company logo Preview 03:20

Adding assembly drawing layer Preview 11:35

Creating mechanical drawing layer Preview 08:00

Adding manufacturing notes layer Preview 04:41

Finishing PCB Preview 09:33

Manufacturing documentation 14 lectures

Create board variants Preview 09:58

Start procedure of releasing your board documentation Preview 04:41

Generate and check gerber files Preview 06:32

Generating NC drill outputs and drawings Preview 04:33

About stackup document Preview 00:45

Generate mechanical drawing Preview 03:09

Generate assembly drawing Preview 04:51

Generate top view drawing Preview 05:21

Generate BOMs Preview 14:24

Generate pick and place file Preview 02:24

About stencils Preview 00:48

Generate 3D PDF and STEP file Preview 07:36

Generate PDF schematic Preview 06:02

Back up the project and what next ... Preview 02:55

Bringing your board to life 5 lectures

How to start with software development Preview 03:28

Programming 16U2 MCU Preview 06:02

Programming 328P MCU Preview 03:08

Reprogram 16U2 MCU Preview 01:28

Testing your board Preview 02:02

Thank you 1 lectures

Thank you very much for signing up for this course Preview 00:47