Re: naming schemes for components on PCBs?

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 12:24:48 -0800, M. Noone wrote:

> Hi - I am finishing up the layout of my first really sophisticated PCB.
> (over 12 ICs, 3 modules, over 10 connectors, and nearing 100 discretes,
> among other components).
>
> When laying it out I've just turned off all the value and name layers.
> The names of all the parts are just incremental in the order in which I
> added them (C1, C2, etc.)
>
> But this seems a very ugly naming system. I have two ideas for ways to
> fix it:
>
> 1. there are maybe 8 or so different types of capacitors on this board
> - I thought that I could give the types different letters (ie A, B,
> etc.) and then name all the capacitors of type A CA1, CA2, etc. Then
> all of type B CB1, CB2, and so on and so forth.
>
> 2. Instead of giving them different type names, I could just name all
> those in type A in a series (is C1-C10 are type A, C11-115 are type B,
> and so on)
>
> Is there a standard way to name components? Having a naming scheme is
> especially important as this is a prototype board and will thus be
> soldered by hand.

Historically, I've named them in the order they appear on the schematic.

In real life, however, I've found that they take the layout and just
number them left to right, top to bottom, the way you'd read letters on
the page.

What you suggest, using different designators based on "type" of capacitor,
is a non-starter. Don't bother, it will just confuse things.

You could silk-screen values onto the board, but don't do "CA1, CB1, CA2,"
and so on - it's "C1 .1 uF" "C2 10 uF 16V" stuff like that.

The order doesn't matter as long as you're consistent and your parts list
matches.

Good Luck!
Rich

.

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