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Arduino Aquarium Controller PCB Testing

Former Member

Hello, my name's Jon and this is my first post. Found Eagle roughly a week ago and was eager to turn my tangle of wires in my project into an actual PCB. Only problem is I'm not that skilled in designing PCBs. I think I've managed to come up with something, but I don't want to purchase some PCB boards and have them show up and either fry or straight up not work due to some error I made.My design is a little different than probably most since I couldn't find most of the components I'm using (Meanwell LDD, Tiny RTC, Step Down) in the libraries. Besides, I already have these components so I designed the board to be able to remove/replace parts easily.

 

Here's a link to my layout thus far:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ln39yjqfbdqujgj/Reef%20Motherboard.zip

    

From what I can tell, it seems like it should work fine, but like I said before, I don't want to send this in, have it made and what not only to find it won't work due to some stupid error on my end. Can anyone give me some pointers or see if there are any errors? My biggest concern is the main power going to my d-sub connector. The power supply going in is a 12v 8a so I tried to make the trace able to handle 8a though it'll never reach that.

 

Any help for a first time PCB'er (Don't know if that's a title, but eh.) would be much appreciated. Thanks!

  • Hi endevor ,

    Bill Here

     

    This is a very impressive layout for a first project. In a week especially. WOW.

    I'm not an expert in PC board design although I have used EAGLE for some time and made hundreds of boards at home. I have run both consistency check and layout rules on your schematic and I can find no errors in either.

    This only checks (1) for errors between the board and schematic and (2) the Board against layout rules. You must verify that the schematic accomplishes what you intend.

    How many of the boards are you planning to order? I suggest order a small order from one of the less expensive board makers and if OK create a order. if not OK correct errors the order.

    Good luck

    Bill

  • in reply to billpenner

    I've created the board several times using a basic perf board and wires and as you can see it got very messy very quickly. It worked for the most part, but occasionally I'd have a LED driver fail. I really only need one of them, but viewing the prices and advice from most PCB places, they require at least an order of 3 and it usually runs 90+. Then again, I don't know a lot of PCB sites so suggestions are also awesome. Idealy, I'd like to get this nailed out and order a good PCB on the first go.