PV educator : November 2015

Often wonder why PCB are used in electronic devices instead of verobaord like stuff we used to do in our college laboratories ? Well the reason is simple, PCB offer reliability and ease in fabricating a circuit. Although the process seems tedious if we compare it with traditional breadboard or veroboard method, but it removes all the clutter of wires and brings neatness in the work that ultimately results in a much more reliable circuit with less probability of failure. In this blog post i will explain all the detail starting from circuit designing on paper up to the fabricated PCB on FR4 substrate. For this i will be using diptrace PCB software, of which the free version is available on their website.

Circuit diagram: Figure 1 shows the basic diagram of a hall effect current sensor system. I have selected this diagram because the package type and information is not standard for this sensor. Therefore, datasheet information about its dimensions are required for its PCB footprint. Secondly, this circuit also utilizes a positive 5 V regulator that comes in the TO-220 package. This package is widely used in most of the common power electronic switches like 6N60, IRFB4229, Z44N etc. Furthermore, this circuit needs input and output connectors which in my case will be similar to what is shown in Figure 2. Hence it is a very comprehensive example for learning PCB design.

Figure 1 : Basic circuit diagram (click to zoom)

Fig 2: PCB screw terminal block connector 5 mm pitch (click to zoom)

Fig 3 : 7805 positive voltage regulator

The design procedure is presented in the video given below.

For worldwide viewers

For viewers in Pakistan

The next step is the fabrication of a PCB. The fabrication process is completed using the indigenous chemical etching using ferrous chloride method. The process is well elaborated in the below mentioned video.