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Ask an Expert Forum Extra eyes for PDB schematic and layout?
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Extra eyes for PDB schematic and layout?

frankcohen
frankcohen over 3 years ago
Hi 14-ers, this is my first post to the forums. I hope it's not too strange of a question. I am excited to be working on a new open-source platform (hardware and software) for making mobile storytelling experiences. (https://github.com/frankcohen/ReflectionsOS). I hired a freelance PCB designer to take my breadboard and create the schematic and layout. I will be taking the design to a board assembly company to build prototypes - along the path to manufacturing. I am new to the PCB designer community. Is it acceptable practice to ask other PCB designers here to review the schematic and layout? Is Element14 forums the right place? Should I hire someone to be a reviewer? I'm thinking the more eyes on it the better it will be. -Frank

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago in reply to frankcohen +4
    in my humble opinion KiCAD is easier. if you need a lib look at https://componentsearchengine.com/library/kicad?gclid=CjwKCAiA55mPBhBOEiwANmzoQpXpShTIAry47xyqGrn2gSiOZcd8LUDfg2VnVBLQAX2O_0tDYDq-5BoCa-IQAvD_BwE…
  • frankcohen
    frankcohen over 3 years ago +4
    The board layout, front and back: I will be publishing the EasyEDA project and Gerber files this week. -Frank
  • Andrew J
    Andrew J over 3 years ago +3
    I’d be careful with this sort of request to be honest. If, as you say, you have hired four designers to come up with an acceptable solution, you really need to trust what they say to you. If you can’t…
  • Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps over 3 years ago

    Feel free to share it. 

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  • frankcohen
    frankcohen over 3 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

    Thanks Jan. The breadboard, software, wiring guide and requirements for the PCB are here: github.com/.../Sox

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  • frankcohen
    frankcohen over 3 years ago in reply to frankcohen

    I should have schematics and board layout to view in 2 weeks. I appreciate your support. -Frank

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago

    Why don't just use  kiCAD it's everything you need and don't  have to hire anybody....

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  • frankcohen
    frankcohen over 3 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    Well, for a start, I am a complete noob on PCB design. And you're a Jedi master (according to your profile photo/avatar) hehe.

    I expect the Reflections project will be available on kiCAD, Autodesk, and a bunch of others. Still, I chose to do the first version in EasyEDA for the tie-in with JLPCB for parts and manufacturers (here in the US and Asia) who do manufacturing and assembly. I'm building this to answer a need I hear from the Arduino community often, there's no end-to-end open software/hardware architecture for building distributed mobile applications. This will be an open-source project. It needs to be easily adopted by engineers and EasyEDA at the moment appears easier to my noob eyes than the other EDA solutions.

    -Frank

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago in reply to frankcohen

    in my humble opinion KiCAD is easier. if you need a lib look at https://componentsearchengine.com/library/kicad?gclid=CjwKCAiA55mPBhBOEiwANmzoQpXpShTIAry47xyqGrn2gSiOZcd8LUDfg2VnVBLQAX2O_0tDYDq-5BoCa-IQAvD_BwE

    and its free! 

    and there are great tutorials on the E14 and the web. 

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  • shabaz
    shabaz over 3 years ago

    This will be a highly dense PCB to populate all that on 36mm diameter board, and is quite advanced, is the PCB designer experienced in RF? Otherwise, there could be mediocre performance with the GPS for instance (guessing you're not using the modules on the breadboard, but component-level?). Hopefully the PCB designer is extremely experienced. I'm not a PCB designer, so I could be wrong, but it does seem like a very major project if everything on the breadboard is to make it onto the single PCB. I guess expectations should be that might need several prototype board iterations, but this is just a first impression, I could be wrong.

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  • frankcohen
    frankcohen over 3 years ago in reply to shabaz

    Thank you for your first impression, I appreciate you.

    The board will be highly dense. I'm expecting at least 4 iterations to get it right. The breadboard works well now. And the repository has software test sketches/code for each of the board's features. I'm hoping that makes the iterations go fast - I'm thinking "fast" is 1 week of design changes and 2 weeks of manufacture/assembly/test for each iteration.

    The applications are entertaining character animations, media playing, and games. They do not depend on real time streaming, nor large media file transfers. I'm thinking most 'shows' are 50-75 Mbytes of data and transfer in a batch process.

    For GPS I spec'd the AT6558 chip with an IPEX connector to an antenna. The antenna lives off the board - in a wrist watch strap for example. The applications/shows will be fine with accuracy of 1-3 feet. I'm getting that in the breadboard now.

    For Bluetooth the goal is to connect to a gateway app running on your nearby mobile phone. The gateway proxies to an Internet Web/REST service - I'll be delivering the server side components for AWS deployment. I'm hoping to leverage all the hard work the mobile phone engineers are doing in the iPhone and Android instead of sweating the board's connection and throughput capabilities on its own.

    As to the PCB designer's "extremely experienced" I am taking a different approach. I hired 4 designers to work on it concurrently, and the one that crosses the finishing line first with acceptable quality is then assisted by the other 3. It's an experiment and I may be a complete fool trying this strategy.

    In all of  the above I'd be glad for you - everyone - to slap me and say "Your expectations are too quick".

    -Frank

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  • Andrew J
    Andrew J over 3 years ago

    I’d be careful with this sort of request to be honest.  If, as you say, you have hired four designers to come up with an acceptable solution, you really need to trust what they say to you.  If you can’t establish that trust that in itself is a flag for the solution.  Asking elsewhere for additional reviews may well garner you lots of responses but you have no idea of the expertise of those providing them, nor, I suspect, have the experience to decide if those responses are valid or not.  Presenting them ad-hoc to your hired designers may well cause trouble!

    A better approach may be to ask “what questions should I be asking the designers to help me review the board?”  - again, you have the same issue of not knowing the experience of those who answer and you may not really understand it enough to know whether your designers’ response is good or not but it at least gives you time to do some research.

    As I said at the start, personally I’d go with trusting your designers and your instincts and then iterate with your chosen designer/solution.

    I’m not a PCB expert so wouldn’t want to comment as a reviewer.  I always worry about my own designs when I submit them to manufacture Grinning

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  • Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps over 3 years ago in reply to Andrew J

    In this case the designs are open source. The design team should expect that external comments will be made.

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