From Breadboard to Custom PCB: My First Hardware Design Journey
Designing and assembling my first PCB
After years in software, I dove into hardware by building a custom PCB for a BME280 sensor using KiCad. I navigated schematic design, component sourcing from DigiKey, and ordering from JLCPCB before hand-assembling the board with my Hakko soldering iron and Quick hot air station. This project bridged my gap between prototyping on a breadboard and creating a production-ready module.
I think they are great for prototyping, but I like getting out of the prototyping phase as soon as possible and getting into a more release or production workflow.
- Retr0id
It's incredible how cheap it is to get custom PCBs made at prototype scale these days, even ones with advanced features. It feels like we're living in a golden era of custom manufacturing.
- dhosek
OK, so people are ordering a custom PCB from China for a one-off? Whatever happened to making them at home? I remember my brothers doing this in the bathroom sink with a board coated with copper¹, some special markers to draw the circuit on the board and chemicals to wash off the extra copper. I’m guessing they might have used our dad’s electric drill to put some holes in the board as well, but looking at the article, this doesn’t seem like an order from China need.
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1. Some details may be incorrect as I was 10, this was the late 70s and I only saw the results, not the process.
- 1024bits
JLCPCB is often the manufacturer of choice with DIY PCBs, and the reputation is well deserved. I recommend them as well, have never had an issue with what they've made. It's a bit pricier for a one-off board given the MOC, so it's preferable to do some sort of group buy if you can.
- JKCalhoun
It's always cool to see people discover KiCad and the amazing world we live in now where a hobbyist can come up with something that can masquerade as a commercial offering.
The transition to SMD and having the "fab" do the assembly was another hurdle for me.
Now I tend to consult LCSC Electronics at the same time I am designing my circuit: checking availability and price of the various components I am proposing to use in my design.
- enzo05814648
Nice board, looking forward to seeing your next one. A little feedback, helpful I hope:
A "via" is basically just a wire stuck right through the whole board top-to-bottom. (Okay, it's not really a wire. They drill a hole and then chemically grow a layer of copper that fills the hole.) You can connect the copper pattern on any layer(s) to that "wire", so it's often used to route a signal from one layer to the other. But you already have a real wire going through the board: the GND header pin! So no via is necessary; just connect directly to that pin on each layer (kicad probably did this for you automatically). This trick works with all thru-hole pins.
For RF or high-current applications, sometimes you cover a board with a grid of vias, just making redundant connections between the planes all over the place, "stitching" them together. But careful, add too many vias and the PCB shop will bill you extra.
Putting a GND pour on the top layer is a good idea. It's lower-impedance than individual skinny traces, and takes less/zero effort to route. The GND trace you manually routed isn't necessary; you can see by the transparent-red shape that kicad already has copper there. However, you ended up with a little "island" of dead copper between R2 and C2, which is the real reason you needed the via.
A better approach would be to use the bottom layer for +3.3V power instead of a redundant ground pour. This gets rid of the +3.3V traces (BTW, best to use a single, thicker one instead of 2x […]