Description:

You have a circuit that works on your breadboard, but now you want to make a fancy, professional-quality circuitboard for it. This class will teach you how to enter your circuit into a free schematic capture program, create a netlist file, import the netlist into a free layout program, produce Gerber files to send to a PCB production house, and produce a BOM (Bill of Materials) for professional board production.

Class Goals:

Students will come out of this class with:

• Basic understanding of Schematic Capture and Symbol Creation
• Basic understanding of Netlist files
• Basic understanding of PCB Layout techniques
• Three copies of your circuitboard

Prerequisites:

A circuit you have designed and want to produce as a circuitboard, or the URL of one you'd like to duplicate.

Materials:

Students will order their circuitboards from DorkbotPDX. The cost is $5 per square inch for a 2-layer board, or $10 per square inch for a 4-layer board.

Instructor Biography:

Drew Van Zandt is a hardware design engineer, signal integrity professional, and programmer who’s interested in robotics, dancing, sensors, woodworking, metalworking, cool math, proper grammar, and one or two other things (e.g. everything).  I don’t own a TV, I do have a cat, though the direction of ownership there is in question.  I’m a gamer, a drink mixer, and a mischief-maker, with all the patience of a lightning bolt.