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Electronics Design

Group assignment

  • Use the test equipment in your lab to observe the operation of a microcontroller circuit board (as a minimum, you should demonstrate the use of a multimeter and oscilloscope)
  • Document your work on the group work page and reflect what you learned on your individual page

Individual assignment

  • Use an EDA tool to design a development board that uses parts from the inventory to interact and communicate with an embedded microcontroller

Learning outcomes

  • Select and use software for circuit board design
  • Demonstrate workflows used in circuit board design

Have you answered these questions?

  • Linked to the group assignment page
  • Documented what you have learned in electronics design
  • Checked your board can be fabricated
  • Explained problems and how you fixed them.
  • Included original design files (Eagle, KiCad, etc.)
  • Included a ‘hero shot’

Time Management

You can access my timetable here.

Group Assignment

You can access the link to our group assignmemt here.

Oscilloscope

The oscilloscope is an instrument that graphically displays electrical signals and shows how those signals change over time. The oscilloscope that we have at our local Fab Lab is the GDS-1202B GW INSTEK. It’s equipped with a lot of buttons and functions to visualize and analyze waveforms. Here are some of the key buttons and their functions:

  • Identify Connection Points:

Find the signal pin on the microcontroller. Locate the GND pin for reference.

  • Connect Oscilloscope Probes:

Attach the probe tip to the signal pin. Connect the ground clip to the GND pin.

  • Configure the Oscilloscope:

Set voltage scale (e.g., 1V/div). Adjust time base for signal frequency. Set trigger mode (Auto/Normal).

  • Power On the Microcontroller:

Ensure proper power supply before measurement.

  • Observe and Analyze:

Check waveform characteristics. Adjust settings for better visibility.

Multimeter

A multimeter is a tool used to measure electrical properties like voltage (V), current (A), and resistance (Ω). It helps troubleshoot circuits, check battery levels, and test components.

Image source

Reflection

Learning how to use the oscilloscope and multimetre was really fun and super helpful. It was cool to realize that everything happening in a circuit isn’t just random—it’s all calculated. Thank you to our support instructors, Dawa Seldon and Yangtshel Wangyel for helping us get through this week’s group assignment! They have always been so helpful.

Individual Assignment

Designing my development board using an EDA tool

EDA tool, which stands for Electronic Design Automation is a software used to assist in the design, simulation, verification, and implementation of electronic circuits and systems. The EDA tool that I am planning on using throughout this course is Kicad.

Kicad

KiCad (/ˈkiːˌkæd/ KEE-kad[7]) is a free software suite for electronic design automation (EDA). It facilitates the design and simulation of electronic hardware for PCB manufacturing. It features an integrated environment for schematic capture, PCB layout, manufacturing file viewing, ngspice-provided SPICE simulation, and engineering calculation. -Wikipedia

Following are some of the links to the tutorials I followed online to get started!

Downloading Kicad

To download Kicad, go to this link.

Tap on your operating system.

You will then be directed to a page specifically showing the available platforms and download locations. Neil recommened us not to download the latest version of it since there can still be bugs present. The version I have is 8.0.0.

Here are the list of platforms avaiable on Windows. I chose the first option. After tapping on it, it should start downloading.

Lastly, set it up.

Adding Fab Library

You can get access to the fab library here. A fab library gives you access to schematic symbols and footprint of components in the Fab Inventory. Since it keeps on updating, it is important to keep up with the latest version. To install the fab library, you can follow these steps:

  1. Download the git repository of the above link I provided you as a .zip file. Extract its contents and rename the kicad-master folder as you like. I renamed it as ‘fab’.

  2. Open Kicad and go to Preferences and then Manage Symbol Libraries.

  3. Add the .sym file from the kicad-master folder.

  4. Repeat the same processes for the footprint libraries. Go to Manage Football footprints from Preferences. Add the fab.pretty file.

Designing my development board

I opened the _sch file of my new file in Kicad where I will be working on my development board. I am planning to make a demo of my final project file using the microcontroller Xiao-ESP32-C3 since acho Thinley recommended it to me. However, I will only be using 1 pressure sensor this time.

This is what its workspace looks like.

Press the keyboard shortcut ‘A’ to add symbol. There, you can type in ‘fab’ to access all the contents of the fab library that we just downloaded. The reason behind doing so is because all of its footprints will be already present.

I assembled my components and connected them with wires, which you can access with the keyboard shortcut ‘W’.

Remember to assign your footprints!

Since none of my components are highlighted, it means that all of the footprints are already assigned.

Now, here comes the hard part. Let us design our PCB😔

Go to Tools > update PCB from schematic

Drag your components to the center.

It is important to set custom widths of the wires if you haven’t done it already. Here is how you do it:

Ideally, you should be setting up these 3 widths:

Mistakes!!

Since this is my first time working with Kicad, I had made a LOT of mistakes.

Before starting my PCB design, there were quite a lot of things that I had forgotten to do😭 I forgot to inspect my schematic design to check for errors! I went back and did that again.

Since there were a lot of pins that were not connected to anything, I added the ‘Add no connect file’ to the pins that were not connected. This is its symbol which you can also access with the keyboard shortcut ‘Q’.

Using labels

From there, I found out that I had a lot of errors that I needed to fix. My support instructors recommended me to use labels to connect my components so that it looks cleaner and I will also be able to identify my errors quicker. To use labels, tap on the ‘Add Global Lable’ icon from toolbar.

Then, input the name of your label(for example GND and VCC) and tap ‘Ok’ once done.

This is how it looks like right now. The red arrows indicates some errors that I will need to fix before starting with my PCB design.

My support instructors then mentioned that errors usually occur with VCC and GND. Therefore, it was “safe” to ignore them.

I had also not annotated my schematic design, so I did that real quick.

Returning back to my PCB design

This was my first trail. As you can see, there are a lot of errors. The wire on the top right corner has a 90 degree angle which isn’t supposed to be there and I had used the same width for all the wires😭

This is my second trail which looks WAY better.

Now let us edge cut it.

To do so, select edge cut from Appearance.

You can then start drawing it out. Make sure to set its width to 0.6 mm.

This is the finished look.

Export your design in svg file.

Open the svg file in inkspace and export it in svg file again.

Mods CE

Now, visit the Mods Ce website. You can follow along here!

  1. Right-click and start and new program.

  2. Select ‘mill 2D PCB’.

  3. Follow these 4 steps.

  4. Delate these unnecesary blocks.

  5. Add a new module.

  6. Connect the input and the output.

  7. Finally, tap on ‘Calculate’ which will start downloading the .rml file.

  8. After it finishes calculating, it will direct you to a open a new tab to your output. This is what mine looks like.

Mistake!!

I made another mistake😭😭 If you haven’t already noticed in the above picture, my initials that I had added in my board in Inkspace were way too close and I forgot to delate the edge of my PCB design in Inkscape. So, I did it again and this is how it turned out.

It is now ready to be milled!!

Original design files

Reflection

I learnt a lot of new things and I had also made a lot, and by a lot I mean a LOT of mistakes and errors, but however, I was able to learn a lot from them. Since, there was a lot going on in my life this week, I really didn’t think I would finish this week’s assignment. Altough this week was a VERY tough one, I was able to learn very much!

Thank you!

The template for this website was provided by Mr. Anith Ghalley and used with his permission

Last update: April 2, 2025