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PCB Design

What’s New in Altium Designer 18 Webinar Recap April 19, 2018

What’s New in Altium Designer 18 Webinar Recap April 19, 2018 April 19th 2018. A beautiful thursday morning and a great day for an Altium Designer webinar. I gather my things and go to the recording studio... In case you missed our Altium Designer 18 live webinar, no worries. You can catch up here with the video recording and presentation slides. If you’re not a fan of videos I’ll try my best to summarize in the webinar notes bellow. Key Takeaways Performance Improvements Multi-threading Multithreading Read Article

True ECAD / MCAD Co-Design Will Eliminate PCB Design Placement Errors

True ECAD / MCAD Co-Design Will Eliminate PCB Design Placement Errors Have you ever had a PCB design returned to you because a component that you placed conflicted with a mechanical feature? Missing even one conflict can cause a lot of grief when it comes time to install the circuit board into the final system. It certainly did in my case where that one part ended up in a location that ultimately wouldn’t fit in the device housing. The only way my layout would work was if I cut an opening in the enclosure for a Read Article

Introduction to Multiboard PCB Design (Part2 ): Connectors - OnTrack Watch Video

31:50 Engineering Finally Integrates Design and Assembly! [David Carmody] Watch Video

With Software for Rigid-Flex Designing, You Can Define and Animate Your PCBs

With Software for Rigid-Flex Designing, You Can Define and Animate Your PCBs Rigid-flex PCBs can open the door of possibilities wide open for complex form factors involving limited real-estate. If implemented correctly, you could effectively use each and every wall of any shaped chassis as a mounting surface for your PCB(s). Designing these rigid-flex boards in design software, such as Altium Designer, makes it easy to visually see how your components might interact with one another once actually in a flexed or folded Read Article

Engineers Build A New Car From the Ground Up

Engineers Show Us How to Build A New Car From the Ground Up Rose Hulman FSAE Car Judy Warner: Tell us about your team, what you make, and where you compete. Anthony Lin: We are the Rose Grand Prix Engineering team from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and we design, build, and race a Formula style (open wheel open cockpit) race car from scratch every year. This year marks our 7th year in the competition with RGP-7 (name of our new car). We compete in the Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Read Article

Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Tips from Electronics Expert Duane Benson

Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing Tips from Electronics Expert Duane Benson Judy Warner: Duane, please share briefly about your background in the electronics industry. Duane Benson: I first burned my fingers with a soldering iron when I was about fourteen. Though I was formally trained and started my career in software development, my first love has always been electronics. My early hardware projects included an electronic stethoscope used to listen through walls for termites chewing on wood, and a caller ID device Read Article

Myths about PCB Routing Angles: 45-Degree Angle vs 90-Degree Angle

PCB Routing Angle Myths: 45-Degree Angle Vs 90-Degree Angle There is nothing wrong with a healthy debate, whether it’s related to determining the worst pizza topping or the best solder mask. In the PCB editor world, a debate that plagues designers and researcher alike revolves around PCB routing angles. Should copper tracks of a PCB be routed at a 45-degree angle vs 90 degree angle PCB? With today’s equipment, however, it turns out that it usually doesn’t matter which angle you use. By utilizing modern Read Article

Use Unique ID EEPROM in Your Embedded System to Prevent Design Counterfeiting

Use Unique ID EEPROM in Your Embedded System to Prevent Design Counterfeiting There’s a saying that smart people don’t always finish the race first. In college, I remember some classmates copying my assignments, only to end up getting better scores than I did. Being smart didn’t necessarily guarantee me the top grades in college and watching others achieve success based on my ideas became demoralizing. The business world is similar; it isn’t uncommon for companies to copy concepts that work well for their competitors and Read Article

Internal Versus External Surge Protection: What’s Best for Total PCB Protection

Internal Versus External Surge Protectors: What’s Best for Total PCB Protection Whether its internal or external surge protection, your electronics device needs something to keep it healthy throughout the lifespan. Read Article

Small Electronic Circuit Design Demands Large Amounts of Attention

Small Electronic Circuit Design Demands Large Amounts of Attention With new taxes regularly introduced to the rising costs of living, it’s only a matter of time before consumers suffer from chain effects. It gets to my nerves when my favorite local restaurants increase prices or resort to reducing their serving size. Of course, I would prefer for things to stay the same but I can at least satisfy my hunger by paying a little extra. In electronics, PCB designs are also getting smaller, just like my favorite plate Read Article

How to Use Testpoints on a PCB Design in Altium Designer

How to Use Test Points on PCB | Altium Designer Maybe it’s because of the old memories of pop quizzes in grade school, but it seems like no one really likes the idea of “testing”. Just as the school children in “A Christmas Story” reacted badly to having to write a theme, people all over the world usually react just as negatively to the idea of taking a test. And yet, if you are going to be a circuit board designer, you are going to have to learn how to use a PCB test point. The good news is Read Article

Don’t Worry Over Your PCB Layout Files ASCII Dance, Waltz with Unified Tools

Don’t Worry Over Your PCB Layout Files ASCII Dance, Waltz with Unified Tools Although competitive partner dancing looks complicated, the technique behind the art is precise. It is nothing like the PCB layout files ASCII dance. Dancers move their feet uniformly in intricate patterns set to the musical beat. If the technique is flawed, steps are missed, and feet collide, ruining the dance. Error messages are indications of missing steps in PCB layout software. When placing and routing components in the software, error Read Article

Ease the Pain of Your PCB Supply Chain Management with Intuitive Design Tools

Ease the Pain of Your PCB Supply Chain Management with Intuitive Design Tools Have you ever been writing something and can’t figure out how to spell a word so you rephrase the entire sentence in order to use a different word? As much as replacing a word can kill your creativity in writing, it is much worse when you have to replace a component while designing electronic circuits. It happens a lot though when you aren’t connected to your supply chain management design. Problems like these can kill your creativity and cause Read Article

Checklist to Troubleshoot a Faulty Embedded System in Your PCB

Computer Fault Finding Checklist: Troubleshoot a Faulty Embedded System in Your PCB Kids these days are much smarter than we were. When I was six, all I cared about was watching Sesame Street every evening. My son, on the other hand, regularly searches for his favorite cartoons on Youtube and asks for the correct phrases to type in to receive the exact results he’s looking for. Even at such a young age, he understands that asking smart questions leads to quicker, and more efficient, solutions. Although finding the right terms to Read Article

Embedded System Implementation and Testing Before Commission

Embedded System Implementation and Testing Before Commission Embedded systems and PCBs in these systems need to be thoroughly tested before deployment. Read Article

Freelance PCB Designers: What You Need to Know to Thrive

How to Become a Freelance PCB Designer and What You Need to Know to Thrive If your career as a hardware engineer is getting stagnant, you may be tempted to switch careers or turn into a freelancer. After all, the major difference between working full-time and freelancing is not having the 9-to-5 routine and being able to work on projects while sipping a piña colada at the beach. When you’re equipped with the top-notch design skills and knowledge of a hardware designer, what could go wrong? Freelancing as a PCB designer Read Article