Sooner or later as every electronic project evolves there comes a time when you will want to move it from breadboard or stripboard to a Printed Circuit Board (PCB).
This can become quite daunting especially when combined with selecting a PCB manufacturer. Fortunately there are some relatively good PCB design programs and low cost / low volume board manufacturers. For basic electronic designs we have found Fritzing software to be particularly useful. This can be downloaded for a small contribution fee that supports its open source hardware initiative. Throughout this article, we’ve added some screenshots so you can get a feel for the program and how it could help elevate your electronics.
Fritzing is a software program that allows the user to develop an electronic design from breadboard through to a finished PCB. Fritzing has an ongoing partnership with AISLER which provide a low cost PCB manufacturing service. For designs which are fairly straight forward and can be achieved on a 1 or 2 layer board, Fritzing could be just the thing for you.
Fritzing for the beginner
On the computer screen Fritzing provides 3 distinct design windows, comprising of the breadboard, schematic and PCB. For the beginner and for educational use the breadboard pictorial view provides a very simple way to create and visualise the connections between components.
For those with some electronics experience they might just want dive straight into the schematic. One feature of Fritzing is that popular well used parts are held in a core parts bin. To place a part, it is simply a case of dragging across the component required. .
You may need to design your own component as one slight problem encountered is there isn’t always a suitable core part available and it may be necessary to adapt a similar component symbol/ footprint. After creating a circuit diagram or breadboard circuit, work can begin on the PCB design. When moving onto this, you might think its only necessary to press the autoroute button and out comes the final PCB. In truth it’s a bit more complicated than this.
The process starts by first selecting the approximate board dimensions and dragging the components to your chosen positions on the PCB. One tip here is to try and locate any complex component with a high number of connections towards the centre of the board. By careful component positioning and orientation you can greatly simplify the track routing.
Don’t forget to consider track widths and examine to confirm clearances are sufficient. When you are happy with this, attention is required to align the component silkscreen idents. After a final check through you should have a PCB ready for manufacturing.
Your final circuit board can be exported and sent to a linked manufacturing service or you can download the Gerber file. The Gerber file format is the standard file for the data transfer of a PCB. Before sending your PCB for manufacturing you can also add your logo or a name to the PCB. This is great to keep track of your circuit boards especially if you’re producing lots of designs.
Good luck – we’d love to see what you create with Fritzing!