How to design and build a CUSTOM PCB – EasyEDA + JLCPCB
|First off I want to make it clear this video is sponsored by JLCPCB, and for a very good reason. I’ve been designing my open source testing tools using JLC’s EasyEDA software for years now, and I’ve been getting them to make my PCBs for years too, so they come highly recommended from me. In this video though I want to walk you through how you’d go about designing and getting your very own custom boards made. It’s easier than you think – thanks to JLC – so let’s dive in!
First off, the circuit design. This is the part I can’t help you with – you’ll need to know what you want your thing to do, and how to wire it up to do it. My biggest piece of advice though is read the datasheet. Some of them are heinously long – the sheet for the SAMD51 I use in the response time tools is over 2000 pages long – but you’ll find out pretty quickly where to look for schematics to follow from, and of course the internet is your friend here. Assuming you know what you’re after then, the process of designing your circuit, and PCB, is remarkably easy. Open a project in EasyEDA and start by finding your parts through the handy library feature. This searches JLCPCB’s parts catalogue, as well as LCSC’s, and JLC’s massive user-contributed parts library. In my case I want the part for the ESP32 board I’m using, a FeatherS3 from Unexpected Maker and Adafruit. I’ll be adding this in with headers so I don’t need JLC to be able to source it, but it would be useful to be able to connect to the right pins, so I just search “FeatherS3” in the library and pick one of the user-contributed versions and place it.
Now for a part I do want JLC to source, a MOSFET. Specifically an IRF8010 as that meets my power, voltage and current requirements. So I just need to search for that, and in my case I’m opting for the PBF variant as JLC has stock, and is included as part of their SMT assembly service – as you can see from the SMT icon there. Now I actually need five of these so I’m just going to copy/paste, then I need some inductors. This is where the LCSC tab is really useful. I know I want a 4.7 microhenry inductor that can support either 24 amps – which is pretty rare, or one that can support 6 amps that I can place four times. So I just select inductors from the box on the left, then 4.7uH from the inductance list, and 6 amps from the rated current list and there we go. I can place one, then duplicate that for a total of eight – four per side. You’ll want to repeat that for each component you’ll need – although a little tip, if you want JLC to build your boards for you, take a look at their basic parts catalogue and pick from there. You’ll thank me later!
As for actually wiring it all up, that’s pretty simple. Grab a wire from the toolbox and just click to start, click to add corners, and click to end. You’ll need power and grounds, so use the VCC or voltage flags, plug the ground flag where necessary, and for separated systems – like this Peltier driver circuit, this doesn’t need to have wires going all the way to the microcontroller, you just use a net flag for that. Put the same net flag on each end – one on the MOSFET gate and one on the microcontroller pin, and that’s them connected. It keeps your circuit diagrams neat and frankly easier to read.
Once everything is wired up, you can use the check nets feature to catch any issues, then press the PCB button in the top bar. Set your size – I like to start at 0, 0 and for this board I’ll make it 100 by 100 millimetres. Then start placing your components. This might take a few tries to get everything to fit where you want it, especially once you start wiring it all in, but you’ll get there. With practice it gets easier to have a bit of intuition for it. Wiring it up is easy too – grab a wire and run a trace between parts. If you need to go through to the other side – or add layers in between like a 4 or 6 layer board – use a via. I personally like using the copper area option to cover the whole bottom of the board with the ground connection. This works really well as a solid ground point, and provides a bit of protection too. If you do make changes to that side of the board after adding the ground plane, right click and hit the rebuild copper area option.
You can also add silk-screening to the board – both top and bottom – so in my case I’m going to label each of the in-use microcontroller pins so that if anyone wants to use this board with a different microcontroller, you’ll know which pin does what. I’ll also add the open source bed cooler text to the bottom, because why not! While I’m here I’m also going to add some mounting holes. If you pick the hole option JLC will drill a hole to that size, whereas if you pick the pad option, then multi-layer, this becomes a grounded hole instead which I generally prefer.
Once you’re happy with the design, you’ll want to check the design tab and see if you have any DRC errors. This has saved me so many times – if you’ve accidentally connected something to somewhere it shouldn’t be, this will let you know. You can also check the nets to make sure that everything that should be connected is. Assuming you don’t have any errors, you’ll want to export the gerber file for the PCB, and if you want JLC to solder components on too, then you’ll want to export the BOM – bill of materials – and pick and place file too.
Actually ordering the boards is really simple as well – for just the PCBs, upload the gerber file zip to JLC’s site, pick your options – including the PCB colour, VIA options and a lot more – then submit the order. If you want JLC to solder the components, check the SMD service box, upload the BOM and CPL files, confirm the parts placement, confirm pricing, then add it to your basket. If you need to order parts JLC doesn’t have stock of, you can either use their own parts sourcing service – which is almost always faster and cheaper – or you can use their global parts sourcing service, where you order your parts from someone like Mouser, RS, digikey and more, and they get shipped to JLC directly.
The boards then get made, often in just 24 hours, then they get assembled, in just two to three days, then they ship them worldwide remarkably quickly. It isn’t uncommon for me to order boards mid-week and receive them in under a week. It’s really impressive! The boards themselves are always great quality – I mean just look at this thing. It’s clean, the solder joints are all solid, parts are placed perfectly, and all that in a week, and an exceptional value. Now I hope you can see why I’ve been using them for years! Of course, if you want to give this whole custom PCB thing a go, I’ll leave a link to JLC’s site in the description, along with a link to their EasyEDA software too – and let me know what you make in the comments below! What’s even better is as of this video going live, JLC is running a promo for Engineer’s Day, running from September 5th to October 5th where you can get up to $125 of coupons, plus if you order in bulk you can win a $150 Amazon gift card, so there’s even more reason to get stuck in and get your projects made – again that’s linked in the description for you.