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  • Author Author: embeddedguy
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PCB designing with Autodesk Fusion 360

embeddedguy

Most of us who like to make PCBs are familiar with Eagle CAD drawing software. I started using EAGLE when it was taught in my university during my bachelors degree. At that time I did not even realize that PCB designing skills would be very useful to me in the future even after years of passing out.

But some time ago Autodesk announce that it will discontinue EAGLE from somewhere in the mid of 2027. That was a bit shocking news for me who used EAGLE to design some PCBs.

But recently I gave found that Autodesk Fusion 360 for personal use is cloud-based development platform also to design PCBs, with similar features as EAGLE has. It is free to use for personal use and has limited features. BTW the full feature version comes at $ 85/month or $ 768/year plan.

For now, I just give it a try to Fusion for personal user. Here is a 2-layer PCB layout design. I personally found Fusion 360 for PCB easy to use and it has some nice features that helps developer to create complex PCB. 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments,

image

Parents

  • The ground plane is very broken, so it will be worth trying to reroute things to keep it as solid as possible. One trick is to check the Gerber files or images of eval/demo boards, to see how the manufacturer routed the part, and to see how they handled the RF traces.

    Does the free version support 4-layers? If so, it could be worth moving to that.

    Also, it's worth running the EAGLE design rule checks, in case there are issues (the pads for one of the connectors look as if they are too close together).

Comment

  • The ground plane is very broken, so it will be worth trying to reroute things to keep it as solid as possible. One trick is to check the Gerber files or images of eval/demo boards, to see how the manufacturer routed the part, and to see how they handled the RF traces.

    Does the free version support 4-layers? If so, it could be worth moving to that.

    Also, it's worth running the EAGLE design rule checks, in case there are issues (the pads for one of the connectors look as if they are too close together).

Children
  • in reply to shabaz

    Yes, one reason for spread ground might be that I am using many GPIO pins and routing them to Pin header. I have looked at nRF54L15 reference layout and the components that I have places are mostly similar to that reference layout. Also, the chip is 6x6 mm only and many components such as clock, caps, etc are arround so less space. 

    Design rules I have checked, and they are ok. With could of violations but they are at safe distance hence no problem, Still I am figuring out the antenna layout part. and hopefully that too be shorted out soon! I got some feedback from the manufacturer but still need to correct those parts.

    The free version does not have four-layer support.

    image

    Also, I have changed the antenna after I got the feedback now, I place the antenna at the center of the edge of the PCB to have equal ground plane on both the sides. 

    image

    One thing about spread GND layer is to place VIAs on GND islands to have same ground signal at the same time at all places on the PCB.