Altium Designer Projects

Browse and learn about pcb design projects built using Altium's software

Creating High Pin Count Schematic Symbols Quickly

Creating High Pin Count Schematic Symbols Quickly Making schematic symbols is quick and painless when you use regular expressions and leverage Altium Designer’s expansive toolkit. Read Article

Remotely Powering Devices, Wirelessly

Remotely Powering Devices, Wirelessly With electronic devices being available in smaller and smaller sizes and the prevalence of wi-fi networks, the rise of remote monitoring devices around the home and the workplace continues to grow. Smart heating solutions now place sensors in every room, monitoring everything from temperature to occupancy to provide a highly efficient zonal heating system. Intruder detection systems no longer require thousands of meters of wiring to be installed Read Article

symbolic division

Guidelines for Creating Useful Schematic Symbols The schematic symbols that you use to represent the components are at the heart of your schematic design. The quality of the symbol and how it is arranged can be one of the most critical factors influencing your schematic’s readability. A poor quality schematic symbol will lead to an unreadable schematic sheet that is difficult to understand. I created the largest open-source library for Altium Designer over five years ago, initially as a way to Read Article

Using a Thermal Camera for PCB Diagnostics

Using a Thermal Camera for PCB Diagnostics There has likely been a time when you’ve powered on a freshly built prototype for the first time, only to find you’ve hit the current limit on the lab power supply. Even as you increase the current limit to way beyond what you would expect your board to draw, the lab power supply is still limited. If it’s safe, you poke around the board with your finger, but you can’t feel any parts that are hot to the touch. Also, probing around with a Read Article

What does AMD’s purchase of Xilinx mean for the electronics world?

What does AMD’s purchase of Xilinx mean for the electronics world? Who is Xilinx? While AMD is focused on microprocessor production, Xilinx is a specialist producer of FPGA (field-programmable gate arrays), which are particularly useful for telecommunications applications, and the development of 5G across the world has opened up significant growth in this sector. The expected number of new 5G cellular base stations required over the next five to ten years will be in the millions. Xilinx has been one of the front Read Article

High current buck converter design

Create a High Current Buck Voltage Controller Mark Harris continues a deep dive into high current buck converter design with off-the-shelf components. We include component choice and PCB layout plus all the calculations and guidelines. Read Article

Smart Micro Fan Controller

Smart Micro Fan Controller If you’ve ever had to wear eye protection for an extended period of time, especially if you have prescription inserts in that eye protection, you’ve probably noticed fogging can be a major issue. Last year I designed and 3D printed a small fan unit that mounts a 25mm x 25mm x 10mm fan on each side of a military eye protection. It directs a small flow of air over the inside of the lenses and keeps them clear even during physical exertion on cool Read Article

Create a Buck-Boost Power Supply

Create a Buck-Boost Power Supply In this series of articles, we’re looking at the design and implementation of the main types of power regulators and converters you might use in an electronics project. I gave a graduate engineer who I mentor a series of requirements to demonstrate each of these types and have recorded the results here so you can work through the same exercises and hopefully come up with the same results. The next switching regulator is the last in our switching Read Article

How to Design a Boost Voltage Regulator

How to Design a Boost Voltage Regulator In this series of articles, we’re looking at the design and implementation of the main types of power regulators and converters you might use in an electronics project. I gave a graduate engineer who I mentor a series of requirements to demonstrate each of these types and have recorded the results here so you can work through the same exercises and hopefully come up with the same results. For the next switching power supply project from my Read Article

From RC to Atomic Clocks: All Clock Sources

From RC to Atomic Clocks: All Clock Sources In almost modern circuits, especially whenever digital circuitry is involved, you will find some kind of clock source. All clock sources present a series of tradeoffs regarding stability, reliability, size, power consumption and cost. Luckily for us, such tradeoffs are relatively simple and can be explained almost fully within this single article. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of each clock source, from the RC in a 555-powered oscillator, to a Read Article

Temperature Sensor Project: Analog Temperature Sensor ICs

Temperature Sensor Project: Analog Temperature Sensor ICs Learn more about the fourth class of temperature sensors in a series of articles that are all about measuring temperature. Discover their advantages and disadvantages as well as common topologies for their implementation. Read Article

Huge Vu-meter with RGB LEDs Project

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

Electrical design rules

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

How to Use Thermocouples in Your Next Project

How to Use Thermocouples in Your Next Project Thermocouples are the final sensor type in a series where we look at all the main types of temperature sensors you might use in an electronics project. In this series, we have looked at the various ways to implement different temperature sensors in your project. At the end of the series, we’ll be putting the sensors and implementations in a head to head competition using real-world conditions. Through this real-world testing, will gain a better Read Article

USB-microSD card reader

Design Your Own USB-MicroSD Card Reader PCB Altium Designer makes it easy to design your own USB-MicroSD card reader. Here’s a simple project to help you get started. Read Article

Digital On-Demand Manufacturing and a 32-Bit MCU PCB for Everyone

Digital On-Demand Manufacturing and a 32-Bit MCU PCB for Everyone Eli Hughes shows us how on-demand manufacturing through a PCB manufacturer's cloud platform helped him quickly produce a set of high-quality prototypes for a MCU board. Read Article

Pandemic PCB Prototyping: Building Electronics From Your Living Room

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