I held off doing PCB stuff for a long time because the tools seemed incredibly complex and intimidating, and now I wonder how I ever did anything without it. The things I wish someone had told me:
- all a PCB is, is a flat version of your hand-wired prototype - all those crazy lines are just the wires - there's no special hidden EE magic until later
- the schematic editor shows your intent
- the pcb layout editor shows where things go
- the hard part is actually just finding schematic and layout editor files for the components you're using - github search is great for this
- you will make lots of mistakes and need a few goes - everyone does, debugging is half the fun, don't be afraid
- online PCB houses make those mistakes cheap
Things I have made with little more than introductory-Arduino knowledge:
- A wearable bluetooth ring:
https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1372368637332389888
- A hall-effect volume control knob for my PC:
https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1179831446204121088
- A long range garage door opener:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B11m1y5J3qc/
- And currently working on a keyboard:
https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1443048243101777921
Also, the debugging step for me got orders of magnitude easier when I got a set of PCBite probes - just drop them on and they mostly stay in place. e.g: https://mobile.twitter.com/gmurphy/status/136575328654495744...
- all a PCB is, is a flat version of your hand-wired prototype - all those crazy lines are just the wires - there's no special hidden EE magic until later
- the schematic editor shows your intent
- the pcb layout editor shows where things go
- the hard part is actually just finding schematic and layout editor files for the components you're using - github search is great for this
- you will make lots of mistakes and need a few goes - everyone does, debugging is half the fun, don't be afraid
- online PCB houses make those mistakes cheap
Things I have made with little more than introductory-Arduino knowledge:
- A wearable bluetooth ring: https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1372368637332389888
- A hall-effect volume control knob for my PC: https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1179831446204121088
- A long range garage door opener: https://www.instagram.com/p/B11m1y5J3qc/
- And currently working on a keyboard: https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1443048243101777921
Also, the debugging step for me got orders of magnitude easier when I got a set of PCBite probes - just drop them on and they mostly stay in place. e.g: https://mobile.twitter.com/gmurphy/status/136575328654495744...