Teach Me PCB
I held off doing PCB stuff for a long time because the tools seemed incredibly complex and intimidating, and now I wonder how I ever did anything without it. The things I wish someone had told me:<p>- all a PCB is, is a flat version of your hand-wired prototype - all those crazy lines are just the wires - there's no special hidden EE magic until later<p>- the schematic editor shows your intent<p>- the pcb layout editor shows where things go<p>- the hard part is actually just finding schematic and layout editor files for the components you're using - github search is great for this<p>- you will make lots of mistakes and need a few goes - everyone does, debugging is half the fun, don't be afraid<p>- online PCB houses make those mistakes cheap<p>Things I have made with little more than introductory-Arduino knowledge:<p>- A wearable bluetooth ring:
<a href="https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1372368637332389888" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1372368637332389888</a><p>- A hall-effect volume control knob for my PC:
<a href="https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1179831446204121088" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1179831446204121088</a><p>- A long range garage door opener:
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B11m1y5J3qc/" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/p/B11m1y5J3qc/</a><p>- And currently working on a keyboard:
<a href="https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1443048243101777921" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1443048243101777921</a><p>Also, the debugging step for me got orders of magnitude easier when I got a set of PCBite probes - just drop them on and they mostly stay in place. e.g: <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/gmurphy/status/1365753286544957442" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/gmurphy/status/136575328654495744...</a>