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An Introduction to Multi-board Design in Altium Designer

An Introduction to Multi-board Design in Altium Designer Brain games are a good way to stay sharp. One of my favorite ways to implement this is by doing daily puzzles. Although I love the crossword puzzles where you complete the words from a given clue, I think puzzles that require you to put the pieces together can be the most challenging, especially when it is a group activity. It reminds me of one of the more daunting problems for engineers and PCB designers, which is multi-board design. Not only Read Article

Multi-Directional Communication for Easy Mechanical and Electrical Collaboration

Multi-Directional Communication for Easy Mechanical and Electrical Collaboration My neighbor and I were sitting on the patio one summer dreaming up a Christmas display that would span both our yards. Engineers, right? Ambitious project, for sure, but we had fun visualizing Santa and his reindeer flying across our two roofs. We’d use LED light strings to span the rooflines and we’d incorporate controllers to synchronize Christmas music. Several months later after summer had turned to Fall, in comes the neighbor with a CAD Read Article

Leave Translation Magic in the Hands of Altium Import Wizard

Leave Translation Magic in the Hands of Altium Import Wizard Having a wizard do your bidding is great when convoluted tasks need some hocus pocus. Removing tortuous steps to get a solution is the goal. A wizard moves pesky tasks to forgotten trials by doing the heavy lifting. Need your PCB files translated? Call the wizard. PCB design toolsets would benefit from well-placed wizards able to perform intricate tasks like file translation. File translation is needed when importing document containers Read Article

How to Design a Printed Circuit Board

How to Design a Printed Circuit Board in 10 Easy Steps Learn how to design a printed circuit board (PCB) and the standard workflow used in the industry. We'll cover schematic capture, PCB layout, and generating printed circuit board design outputs in Altium Designer. Read on to learn the universal PCB design steps. Read Article

Digital Library Management for Circuit Boards: More Than a Few Shelves

PCB Creator's Digital Library Management for Circuit Boards: More Than a Few Shelves When you hear the word “components”, it’s natural to think about ICs, LEDs, resistors, and all the other electronic hardware that goes into building a PCB. But in terms of PCB design software, there is a lot of information that goes into any component. Every component has an associated symbol, footprint, pin arrangement, and other properties that are used by your PCB design software. With so many components available on the market and with Read Article

Rigid-Flex Command Set-up and Layer Stack Design

Rigid-Flex Command Set-up and Layer Stack Design Once you take that nose dive into PCB design, you start to realize how many of your home electronic devices actually work. From DVD drives to laptop monitors, and just about anything that folds, it is all made possible with rigid-flex PCBs. Rigid-flex PCB design can be a tricky beast depending on the software you’re using to create it, but at the end of the design, your printed circuit board will bend and flex like a gymnast. A rigid-flex PCB, at Read Article

how to convert schematic to pcb layout in altium

How to Create a PCB Layout from a Schematic in Altium Designer You’ve done your usual excellent job of putting together the PCB schematic. The circuitry is defined and you are ready to go to PCB layout. But this time it’s a little different. Maybe your regular layout resources aren’t available, or perhaps you want to try to do your first layout yourself. Whatever the reason, you are ready to start working on the board side of PCB design, but you’re not sure how to create it from a PCB schematic in Altium Read Article

Design Planning with Differential Pair Routing Software and Directive Symbols

Design Planning with Differential Pair Routing Software and Directive Symbols If the components on your PCB are like the organs in your body, then your trace routing between components are like blood vessels. What looks like a complex tangle of copper connections is actually a meticulously designed system that uses well-understood design rules. Your PCB design software can help you maximize your productivity while routing and prevent errors using directive designations. Great PCB design software doesn’t just let you set Read Article

A Schematic Tutorial in Altium Designer: The Journey of a Thousand PCBs

How to Create a PCB Schematic | Altium Designer There’s an important step in creating your PCB layout: How to make a schematic? You might feel overwhelmed with all of the options, but don’t worry! Whether you’ve got decades of experience in your pocket or just starting your design or engineering career, your PCB design begins with schematic capture. Below is a schematic capture tutorial in Altium Designer, covering everything from component access to wiring parts together into circuits. A PCB Read Article

RF and Microwave PCB Design with John Bushie from ASC

RF and Microwave PCB Design with John Bushie from ASC This is an episode about RF and Microwave PCB Design as well as Design for Manufacturing or DFM and it will help you to understand material choices and where to get answers about high speed laminates. Read Article

isolated vs non-isolated power supply design guide

Isolated vs Non-Isolated Power Supplies: The Right Choice Without Fail Learn the advantages and disadvantages of isolated vs non-isolated power supply design. Read Article

High Current PCB Design and its Real World Applications

High Current Board Design and its Real World Applications With the rise of PCB applications stretching far and wide, designs are being created for applications that extend past simple signal integrity solutions. Advancements in material technology, PCB manufacturing capabilities, and the rising demand for PCB design is opening up the floor for many industries that otherwise have been dormant in the PCB world. Many limitations that were not present a handful of years ago are beginning to loosen. Of Read Article

The Best Tools for Multi-Board PCB Systems Design

The Best Tools for Multi-Board PCB Systems Design They say that time flies when you’re having fun. Maybe that’s why I feel like time slows to a crawl when I’m constructing a multi-board PCB device. Designing even one board can be an agonizing task, what with trying to avoid EMI, ground everything properly, mitigate static discharge, and optimize your routing. Creating a system of PCBs that all fit together physically and electrically sometimes tests the limits of tedium. Lucky for us there are Read Article

Important Considerations for Pads in PCB Design: Pad Cratering Prevention

Important Considerations for Pads in PCB Design: Pad Cratering Prevention Every year after Halloween, my school used to have a pumpkin launch, probably so they could get the pumpkins on sale. Mostly, mechanical engineering students participated, but anyone was allowed to enter and see if they could launch their pumpkin the farthest. Sections of campus were blocked off and your path to class was rerouted if you went at all. Most of the engineers got (or took) the morning off for cheering and jeering. Results were Read Article

Wearable Technology in the Future Will Be Seamless and Convenient

Why Wearable Technology is the Future and How It Will Be Seamless and Convenient When I was younger I was a bit of a nerd, and I guess I still am. The most visible sign of my nerdiness was my fashion sense or lack of it. Tall socks, cargo shorts, and a brown Pacman hoodie that I wore in every season, except summer, made up my daily wardrobe. I was simply more interested in gizmos and gadgets than I was in looking good. I’m still more interested in fashionable electronic devices than clothes, but the line between the two is Read Article

Wearable Technology in the Future Will Be Seamless and Convenient

Wearable Technology in the Future Will Be Seamless and Convenient When I was younger I was a bit of a nerd, and I guess I still am. The most visible sign of my nerdiness was my fashion sense or lack of it. Tall socks, cargo shorts, and a brown Pacman hoodie that I wore in every season, except summer, made up my daily wardrobe. I was simply more interested in gizmos and gadgets than I was in looking good. I’m still more interested in electronic devices than clothes, but the line between the two is beginning to Read Article

How Do Ferrite Beads Work and How Do You Choose the Right One?

How Do Ferrite Beads Work and How Do You Choose the Right One? Ferrite beads are sometimes overused in PCB design, but they can perform important functions in a PCB if you know how to use them. Read Article