Re: Board Design

On Feb 27, 11:22 am, qrk <SpamT...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
If you get an experienced designer in at $100 to $150/hr, you'll be
into the couple thousand $ range, unless your circuit is trivial. You

I think the circuit is trivial. Low-speed, single supply rail. No
complex power sequencing issues. The hard part for me is determining
things like size and number of bypass caps, termination resistors,
etc.

would learn a lot if you did this yourself. A 1 month project will
give you an equivalent of 2 years conventional schooling plus. As
someone said, post schematics and board layouts to
alt.binaries.schematics.electronics (ABSE). People will give lots of
comments. One chap did this on his switching power supply design
recently. He had lots of input. When you do this thru the use net, you
learn, we all learn.

That's a good point. Learning from others and sharing what I've done
would be a good step. I'll surf over to ABSE and lurk for a bit to
see what I can learn.

You also become much more valuable at work with this knowledge. It's
really hard to deal with firmware folks if they don't understand
electronics!

In defense, I'm not clueless on the electronics side. I'm perfectly
comfortable reading a schematic. I understand pull-ups/pull-downs,
why open collector/open drain outputs are used, the right way to do
LEDs, why bypass caps and termination resistors are needed, etc. I
just don't know how to determine the appropriate types of LEDs, caps,
resistors, etc. I certainly understand the interconnect, but on a
logical level. The "analog" side of things is where I don't have
experience or knowledge. I know enough to work with the electrical
guys.

But you are correct, learning how to design a PCB is a valuable
skill. I'll surf over to ABSE and take a look there.

Thanks,
Pete
.