Experiment-7

AIM: Introduction to PCB design Process.

Apparatus: Eagle Software, Copper board, OHP paper

Theory:

A PCB is a printed circuit board, also known as a printed wiring board. It is used in electronics to
build electronic devices. A PCB serves two purposes in the construction of an electronic device; it is a
place to mount the components and it provides the means of electrical connection between the
components. This is done by making conductive pathways for circuit connections by etching tracks
from copper sheet laminated onto a non-conductive substrate.

A PCB consists of a conducting layer that is made up of thin copper foil. The insulating layer di-
electric is laminated together with epoxy resin prepare. Boards may be single sided or double sided.
Double sided PCB can be used to connect electronic components on both sides through through-
hole plating. This is done by copper plating the walls of each hole so as to connect the conductive
layers of the PCB.

Advantages of PCB over Bread-board

● You can get a much higher density board with PCB.

● You will find the PCB design to be more reliable than the one made on a bread
board. The circuit will look neat without any wires popped up and will not fall
apart.

● You can have very precise control over the circuit component you are using, and
you can comfortably fit in odd shaped components that are difficult to fix on a
bread board.

● For production of large volume of circuit boards, the costs become less and the
soldering can be done by fully automated machines.

For PCB fabrication, some basic steps have to be followed as mention in block diagram of figure 1.
The detailed description on how to make PCB is explained below.

Figure 1 Block diagram of PCB designing steps

Step 1: Prepare a layout

Steps of Designing PCB from EAGLE

(1) from the “File” menu, select “New” and then “Project”
(2) First, you select the action (Move, Delete, Name, Value, Net, etc.), and then you select the
component you want to apply it to.
(3) Add the Components
(4) Find a 555 timer IC somewhere in there, Start by entering “555” in the search field. To find
any words that end in “555,” add an asterisk (*) to the front of the search. Click “OK,” and
move the cursor toward the middle of the schematic window. to escape from component
adding mode, you need to press the “ESC” key and then click on “Cancel” in the “Add”
window. to delete the extra components, you first need to switch to “Delete” mode by
clicking on the “Delete” icon. Everything you click on will be deleted
(5) Add resistor “Exclude smds”
(6) add an electrolytic capacitor to the schematic. It’s going to be a 1-Μf. The “CAP_POL”
sections are for polarized or electrolytic capacitors, so look in there. There isn’t a 1-μF
capacitor, but there is a 10-μF one
(7) Add two LEDs as well
(8) Use “terminal” as the search term and select the top result from Adafruit.
(9) Add resistor “Exclude smds”
(10)add an electrolytic capacitor to the schematic. It’s going to be a 1-μF
(11)The “CAP_POL” sections are for polarized or electrolytic capacitors, so look in there. There
isn’t a 1-μF capacitor, but there is a 10-μF one
(12)Add two LEDs as well
(13)Use “terminal” as the search term, and select the top result from Adafruit.
(14)Select the “Rotate” mode by clicking on the “Rotate” icon. Click on each of the resistors to
rotate them through 90 degrees, and then click on the connector twice to rotate it a full 180
degrees
(15)To move the components, select the “Move” button, and drag the components to their
approximate locations
(16)click on the “Net” icon.
(17)To add values, click on the “Value” icon to put EAGLE into value-setting mode.
(18)ERC (Electrical Rule Check) will analyze design and tell if any problems with it. from the
“Tools” menu of the “Schematic” window, select the option “ERC.

(19)
(20)“Switch to Board” on the “File” menu of the Schematic Editor. This will result in a prompt
saying (and I paraphrase), “There is no board, so would you like to create one from the
schematic?” This is just what we want, so click on “Yes.”

(21)
(22)Select the “Move” tool, and move the components onto the PCB area.
(23) Zoom out so that you can see the whole board, and then select the “Move” tool and drag in
the left and top sides of the board until they just enclose all the components.
(24)To start the “Autorouting” tool, click on the “Auto” button in the “Tool” palette
(25) just accept the defaults and click the “OK” button. The board will be routed before your very
eyes. If the routing is successful, then the status bar will say Ratsnest: Nothing to do
(26)The CAM processor is the EAGLE module that converts the layers in the EAGLE PCB design
and produces the industry standard files required to fabricate the PCBs. Although some PCB
fabrication services will accept EAGLE design files directly, most require you to produce a set
of what are called Gerber files. These files are an industry standard for PCB fabrication. You
will normally be required to produce seven files.
(27)the easiest way of generating the files is to use a CAM configuration (called a CAM job) that
has been designed by someone else. we will use the excellent CAM job designed by
Sparkfun. This is available free of charge from Sparkfun at
https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_Eagle_Settings/tree/master/cam.
 (28)download the file sfe-gerb274x.cam, and copy it into the .cam folder in your EAGLE
installation directory.
(29)To open the Sparkfun CAM job, select the option “Job…” from the “Open” option of the File
menu on the CAM Processor window. Then select sfe-gerb274x.cam from the list, and the
Sparkfun CAM Job will open up
(30)To generate the Gerber files, all we need to do is to hit the “Process Job” button. The files
will be generated and placed in the project folder.

Step 2: Cutting Board

Cut the copper board according to the size of layout. A copper board is the base of a PCB, it can be
single layer, double layer or multi-layer board.

● Single layer copper board has copper on one side of the PCB, they are used to
make single layer PCBs, it is widely used by hobbyist or in the small circuits.

● A double layer copper board consists of copper on both the sides of the PCB. These
boards are generally used by the industries.

● A multilayer board has multiple layers of copper; they are quite costly and mainly
used for complex circuitries like mother board of PC.

Step 3: Electro less plating copper

Rub the copper side of PCB using steel wool. This removes the top oxide layer of copper as well as
the photo resists layer if any.
Step 4: Develop/ Pressed film

Place the OHP sheet (wax paper) which has the printed layout on the PCB sheet. Make sure that the
printed/mirror side should be placed on the copper side of PCB.

Step 5: Exposure

Put a white paper on the OHP sheet and start ironing. The heat applied by the electric iron causes
the ink of the traces on the OHP sheet to stick on the copper plate exactly in the same way it is
printed on the OHP sheet. This means that the copper sheet will now have the layout of the PCB
printed on it. Allow the PCB plate to cool down and slowly remove the OHP sheet. Since it is manual
process it may happen that the layout doesn’t comes properly on PCB or some of the tracks are
broken in between. Use the permanent marker and complete the tracks properly.

Step 6: Etching

Now the layout is printed on PCB. The area covered by ink is known as the masked area and the
unwanted copper, not covered by the ink is known as unmasked area. Now make a solution of ferric
chloride. Take a plastic box and fill it up with some water. Dissolve 2-3 tea spoon of ferric chloride
power in the water. Dip the PCB into the Etching solution (Ferric chloride solution, Fecl 3) for
approximately 30 mins. The Fecl3 reacts with the unmasked copper and removes the unwanted
copper from the PCB. This process is called as Etching.  Use pliers to take out the PCB and check if
the entire unmasked area has been etched or not. In case it is not etched leave it for some more
time in the solution.

Step 7: Tin removal

We use liquid to take away the tin in the board. Take out the PCB wash it in cold water and remove
the ink by rubbing it with steel wool. The remaining area which has not been etched is the
conductive copper tracks which connect the components as per the circuit diagram.

Step 8: Drilling

Now carefully drill the PCB using a drilling machine on the pads.

The components that have to be attached to the multi-layered PCB can be done only by VIAS drilling.
That is, a pated-through hole is drilled in the shape of annular rings. Small drill bits that are made out
of tungsten carbide is used for the drilling. A dermal drill press is normally used to punch the holes.
Usually, a 0.035 inch drill bit is used. For high volume production automated drilling machines are
used.

Sometimes, very small holes may have to be drilled, and mechanical methods may permanently
damage the PCB. In such cases, laser drilled VIAS may be used to produce an interior surface finish
inside the holes.
1. What is need for a pcb?

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2. Advantages of pcb over bread-board

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3. How do you verify schematic symbols or footprints?

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4. Explain the pcb design flow.

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5. What are the inputs you need to design a pcb?

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6. What are the errors you got while importing net list ?

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7. How do place components?

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8. How do you plan routing and what are the parameters you consider while routing?

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9. What is the difference between a pad and a via?

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10. What are blind and buried vias, compared to normal vias?

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