Myke's Home Page

Book CD-ROM Home

File Copying/Harddrive Setup

Development Tools

Experiments

Projects

Useful Code Snippets and Macros

Introduction to Electronics

Introduction to Programming

Datasheets

PCBs

Links

McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing

PCB Designs Presented in this book

In this book, I have provided a number of projects and tools which are most efficiently built using PCBs. I have broken up the projects into two PCB designs which you can have built at a "quick turn prototyping" PCB House. The company that I always recommend is AP Circuits - they have always done an outstanding job for me and the processing time of 72 hours is very good. If AP Circuits is used to order these cards, order them as "Proto1" - note that "Proto1" does not "silkscreen" ("Overlay") text and graphics. All the files needed for having the PCBs built are listed below.

The PCB files are in "Gerber" format. I have not provided "Solder Mask" files, but if you are going to build the cards with solder mask, contact me and I will provide the files for you. You can look at these files using either "GCPREVUE" or "ViewMate" (by "Lavenir"). Both of these tools are available for download free of charge from multiple sites on the Internet.

I have placed multiple PCB images in each file, to allow you to build multiple cards simultaneously rather than one at a time. For cutting apart the PCBs, you can use a sheet metal brake, a power mitre saw, a "Dremel Tool", or a jigsaw. The fiberglass used in PCBs is very tough, hand powered tools will take a long time to cut through the cards. You may want to experiment with different techniques and tools on surplus PCBs before cutting these cards apart. When cutting the cards apart, remember to always wear eye protection and you may want to have a respirator (for the dust and the fumes) and ear protection (especially for power tools).

I do not recommend that any of these PCB layouts be built at home, except by people who are familiar with double sided PCB processes. Plated through vias will make it easier for you to work with the boards, but they are not an absolute necessity. If you have built your own PCBs, note that all pins must be soldered on top and bottom, either using the component pins or by placing pins at the via sites and soldering both sides.

If do build these boards at home, please make sure you properly dispose of the chemicals that are used exposing the boards as well as etching them.


For both PCB boards, I have used the following two files for specifying basic PCB information. These files (and their values) are quite common and you should not have any problems working with them.

In the drill file, I have specified only four drill sizes as this is the maximum number of drill sizes that AP Circuits will work with at their basic cost. This is not a problem except for vias, in which I used a standard PTH hole (0.035" diameter) instead of a via sized hole (usually 0.018" to 0.020" in diameter).


"PCB1" Files

The first PCB file contains images for the following printed circuit cards:

  1. YAP-II
  2. El Cheapo
  3. +5 Volt Breadboard Power Supply shown in Introduction to Electronics
  4. Christmas Tree Project

The files that you should be concerned with are:

  1. pcb1.gtl - Top Side Copper Image
  2. pcb1.gbl - Bottom Side Copper Image
  3. pcb1.gov - Top Side "Overlay" or "Silkscreen" Image. Note the comments about the overlay above.

"PCB2" Files

PCB2 has the following two images:

  1. EMU-II
  2. Pic17Dev

The files that you should be concerned with are:

  1. pcb2.gtl - Top Side Copper Image
  2. pcb2.gbl - Bottom Side Copper Image
  3. pcb2.gov - Top Side "Overlay" or "Silkscreen" Image. Note the comments about the overlay above.