Like most trades, there are organizations that publish standards and processes that help govern and provide guidance. Electronics is no different. The IPC (Institute for Printed Circuits) (http://ipc.prg/) produces a series of standards documents. Here, we’ll focus on IPC-7351 – Generic Requirements for Surface Mount Design and Land Pattern Standard. It can be purchased from […]
Category: Hardware
Cheatsheet: Trace Width and Mils to Metric Conversion
I’m partial to printable quick-references. This one breaks down the mil-to-metric conversions and their associated current capacities at 1-oz and 2-oz copper at both internal and external copper layers. The current capacity values are formula driven based on the IPC-2221 standard. So the tables can be easily reduced, extended, or reformatted as needed. Click on […]
Cheatsheet: Mounting Hole Reference (metric)
I find cheatsheets like these very useful. Easily printable to my cubicle wall for a quick reference and sanity check when trying to get a board to prototype status as quickly as possible.
GrabCAD: Component Models
I’m a big stickler for accurate 3D models in layouts. With today’s tighter mechanical integration it’s always useful to ensure clearances and if the exported model from ECAD is accurate as possible then there isn’t a chance that something could be placed wrong when added in MCAD. Plus, it adds an additional check with new […]
Altium Tip: Automatically Repour
One of the very useful features in Altium Designer is the automatic DRC. However, when working with poured polygons it can be annoying to constantly right-click and repour. Luckily, there’s a setting for this! Under the Tools > Preferences menu look for the Polygon Rebuild section under PCB Editor > General
Top Markings for LT Parts
One of the best ways to learn how to engineer something is to take an existing design and reverse engineer it to find out how it works. Most semiconductors are too small to list the entire part number on the packaging so most companies apply a shorthand code. The link below provides a list of […]
Preventing Start-Up Issues Due to Output Inrush in Switching Converters
Fil Paulo Balat, Jefferson Eco, and James Macasaet wrote a blog post about output filter design to mitigate output inrush: Switching converters on applications demanding reduced output noise may encounter delayed startup, or may not startup at all, due to excessive output inrush. Output inrush current, attributed to inappropriate design of output filters and its […]
Documenting Your Designs: The Release Package
The next portion of design documentation revolves around how you define your release package. The importance here is to thoroughly capture all of the needed information to have your design produced organized in a logical and sane manner. Here the lowest level folder are your fabrication files. These are the collection of mechanical files and […]
Documenting Your Designs: Project Files
After you’ve designed your board and ordered a prototype the job is only partially done. The design itself needs to be properly documented and stored outside of your standard working directory to ensure data integrity. This way you never accidentally make a change and save over an archieved design. To go along with this, it’s […]
Eagle Tip: Exporting Pick and Place Data
When submitting a design to a fab to get your electronics assembled, you’ll need to generate the “XY Data” file that can then be imported into the board houses’ software to program their Pick-and-Place machine. The default-installed ULP below will generate the data file in a format that matches Altium Designer and will be useable […]