PCB Designers

Resources and information for PCB Designers.

Pandemic PCB Prototyping: Building Electronics From Your Living Room It feels like everyone is writing an article these days about how they’re managing (or not managing) with stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19 restrictions. At the time of writing, California (where I am based) has the highest number of cases over any other state in the United States. To combat the pandemic, most non-essential businesses have been closed or open in a limited fashion. This means that folks who are able to work from home (e.g Read Article

Detroit Become Human Cosplay with Flexible PCBs and CircuitPython A Father’s Story for “Introduce A Girl To STEM Day” Read Article

Huge Vu-meter with RGB LEDs Project A laboratory journal to guide you through the steps to develop a successful product that value-conscious customers are sure to love. Read Article

Customizing Performance-Based Electrical Design Rules in Altium Designer Electrical design rules go beyond manufacturing and assembly. PCBs also require electrical design rules that are based on a signals’ electrical behavior. Read Article

Expert Analysis of Measured S-Parameters Read to learn an introduction about S-parameter analysis. This article covers how to identify port maps, what insertion loss and return loss looks like, how the various S-parameters look in the time-domain, and some additional analysis techniques to use when data mining S-parameters. Read Article

Using the iPad Pro for Electronic Design Altium Concord Pro® on Altium 365 was updated with a smoother, more feature-full and more intuitive interface for the web design viewer. I want to use this occasion to share with you some of my favourite apps and websites for electronic design. Read Article

The Search for the All-in-One Design Data Management System In this article we discuss the pain points of using a single design data management system over linking many together. Read Article

12V DC Uninterruptible Power Supply I live in a rural village that tends to have intermittent power when there are high winds or storms. Because of this, my computers, servers, and network equipment are all on relatively low-cost, uninterruptible power supplies. These all run on sealed lead acid batteries and are not an overly efficient way to power a DC device such as a Raspberry Pi or internet router as the incoming mains. AC charges a DC battery, which then creates AC power Read Article

How Calumet Electronics Joined the Fight Against COVID-19 With Altium 365 The town of Calumet, with a population of barely seven-hundred, was once the booming epicenter of Michigan’s upper peninsula mining industry. When the industry began to fail, unemployment skyrocketed, and the townspeople sought local solutions for creating jobs that could sustain the town’s families. Rob Cooke, Director of Engineering Services at Calumet Electronics Corp, joins the OnTrack podcast to discuss the Open Source Ventilator project Read Article

Exploring IPC’s Network of Printed Board Design Engineers The renown global trade association known as IPC has put together a network of printed board design engineering affiliates under the name IPC Design. IPC Design’s affiliates are comprised of PCB design engineers across the globe who are working to advance the art and science of printed design engineering. IPC Design’s Patrick Crawford and Teresa Rowe join the OnTrack Podcast. Listen to the Podcast: Download this episode (right click and save) Read Article

Linking Managed Projects with your Git Server using Altium Concord Pro There’s been a bit of chatter on the forums lately discussing linkages between managed projects within Altium Concord Pro, and version control using external Git servers (such as GitHub or Bitbucket). In this article, we will be taking a closer look at the backend of Altium Concord Pro’s managed project system and how we can link back to your Git server. Altium Concord Pro Managed Projects: A Closer Look Historically, the Altium Vault—which Read Article

Impacts of Design Miniaturization and Complexity Since they’ve been created, electronics have been getting smaller, faster, and more efficient. But when you try to cram more components, pins, and connections in a smaller sized board, you’re going to have some problems. These challenges include heat, BGA breakouts and size itself, meaning how are you going to fit your board in that small, oddly shaped enclosure. Here are a few quick stats: Board area has remained relatively constant, while the Read Article

Challenges with Rigid-Flex Design To learn more about this topic please see the full solution - Challenges with Rigid-Flex Design - at Altium.com. Download PDF

PCB Design Tools Utilizing the available PCB design tools to their maximum potential allows designers to strike the perfect balance of passion and productivity in their work. Data from top performing designers demonstrates how these tools can lead to more successful outcomes in both business and engineering when used correctly. Key findings include: Best-in-Class companies are more likely to improve designer productivity through tool and process efficiency. The Download PDF

Discover how to shift your focus back to design by completing a quick assessment Enter content here Read Article

Solving Modern PCB Layout Challenges PCB technology advances are a two-edged sword. They have increased the power and applicability of electronics. But they also make PCB layout more difficult, raising the risk of longer time-to-market cycles and higher product costs. Designers can mitigate these risks by using a unified PCB layout software package that provides the automation necessary to bring products to market quickly and on-budget. TOPICS IN THIS SOLUTION SOLVING BGA ROUTING Download PDF

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