[hackpgh-discuss] Re: PCB class
- From: Matthew Beckler <matthew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: hackpgh-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 10:55:14 -0400
On 05/23/2012 10:13 AM, Doug Philips wrote:
Hey Matt,
Glad you're still alive and kickin'!
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 5:31 PM, Matthew Beckler<matthew@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As many of you know I'm going to be teaching a PCB class with Kicad coming
up in a few weeks. While it's a good software EDA package, and I know it
well, what I'm struggling most with is to determine the proper scope.
Given the lack of advertising, promotion, etc. on this, I'm thinking
we'll probably only get shop members at the class. That'd be OK, but I
wanted to raise the possibility of postponing the class date to allow
for more outreach/PR, etc. as well as getting the scope worked out?
That's a good point, I forgot we usually like to have a month of
get-the-word-out before each class. I'm totally amenable to postponing
the class if that would work better. Here are the weekends I am free
this summer:
June 23/24
June 30/31
July 7/8
July 14/15
August 4/5 (MF Chicago, anyone going?)
August 11/12
August 18/19
August 25/26
think a good group discussion should work just fine. I'm also planning to be
at the shop this Friday to work on the class plan (and ideally FiniSH IT!!!)
Perfect!
Morning session: How to go from a breadboard circuit to a schematic
How schematics work, how we represent real work parts with symbols
Start with a real circuit that I can make on a breadboard
Perhaps a little uC-based RGB led toy?
Learn how to enter schematics into Kicad
That all sounds good.
Learn about how to make your own new schematic symbols
That seems kind of ambitious? Do we have some kind of open source
library that we can contribute back to?
I'm just concerned that this one item alone could take most of an hour...
That's a good point. Usually the existing schematic symbols are good
enough for almost everything you need to do, but once or twice I've had
to make new schematic symbols (the wii nunchuck, for example, and also a
brand-new microcontroller we used in the blinky kits, both required new
schematic symbols).
All the symbols/footprints built into Kicad are open source, and there
are lots of people online who build and share their symbols/footprints
with the world under open licenses.
Afternoon session: How to go from a schematic to a PCB
... Most of this is over my head, so I have no idea how ambitious (or
mundane!) it is...
Maybe talk about component selection?
Wouldn't that be part of the morning class going from breadboard to
schematic? (Again, I'm a noob, so perhaps I don't understand...)
Yeah, I'm not sure where this would fit properly. Probably more in the
breadboard->schematic part, you're right. Part of it is related to the
PCB though, in that you probably don't want to pick teeny-tiny SMT parts
if you're aiming to make it easy to assemble, you know? Let's chat on
friday.
Maybe have a "come back and solder up your pcb" 2-3 weeks later?
Or maybe piggy back on to another learn to solder class? (we'd still
limit the total class size)
I like this idea.
Also I just talked to my PCB guy (@laen from DorkbotPDX) and worked out
a way for us to get all our PCBs fabricated. He'll then ship them all to
me as a big panel, and I can separate them in time for the come-back
soldering class.
-Matthew
Other related posts:
