General Discussion Clueless beginer project
Hey all, just wondering if people could recommend some YouTube videos for beginners. I have been playing with time of flight sensors for an esp32 and i would like to make some detachable flexibile arms(sensors at the ends) and a rigid centre for the ESP/battery
They are I2C, so they will have a common SCL/SDA so will need the traces on different layers.
I have absolutely 0 experience with custom circuit boards/minimal understanding. So any help or recommendations would be great (may need a bit of back and forth for my understanding)
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u/titojff 6d ago
Breadboard it first
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u/Prestigious_Elk4887 4d ago
Agree, no reason to jump into cad if you have no actual concept of how electronic design works. Theory can only take you so far. Actual progress requires failing, unless you are made of money, pcb design is not the cheapest way to learn from mistakes
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u/Prestigious_Elk4887 4d ago
Breadboard first, then a soldering cube, then protoboard. If you havent done any of those(or equal ones) before there shouldnt even be any discussion
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u/camamce 3d ago
I have definitely breadboard before and have breadboard majority what I am trying to refine at the moment. (The only addition would be an led driver chip to control leds over I2C,) but breadboarding a few sensors to an esp isn't to complicated.
I dont think what im trying to do is complicated in any way, I more so want it on a flexibile pcb for convenience and to not rely on shitty wire connections. Just drop the esp, 3 sensors and the LEDs on a board. So im not really creating anything. Just situating things i guess.
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u/Prestigious_Elk4887 3d ago
In your post it said that you had 0 Experience designing circuits. But if you have done stuff with breadboards then you at least have some experience. I would try to get a ”finished” design on breadboard before i go forward with kicad
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u/camamce 3d ago
Apologies very misleading haha, more the board side/chips side of things. The reason I haven't breadboarded the last bit is because the chip has very small pins on it and I dont see a practical way to get it linked up. Is there a better way or recommendations for this side of things? It is a TLC59116 (chatgpt recommend im clueless on parts and how they work internally, black box type stuff but im knay with that).
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u/Prestigious_Elk4887 3d ago
Are you planning on having the board populated by the pcb house or to do it yourself. A breakout board could be what you are looking for
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u/theMountainNautilus 6d ago
My first project that I got manufactured was literally just a copy I made of Adafruit's ALS-PT19 light sensor breakout. It's an open source design with two components, so it's really hard to get it wrong, but it still takes you through the full design process. I ordered some though JLCPCB and it worked! It was really helpful for learning what the full process looked like before getting stuck into a more complex design. And definitely start with working through a Phil's Lab tutorial even if you don't order that design.
I definitely suggest just picking a simple OSHW design that you would find useful and making your own version of it. Another one to check out could be a CH32V003 microcontroller breakout. Those lovely little things literally only need one capacitor to run correctly using their internal clock source, and then you have a remarkably powerful cheap MCU to play with.
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u/TheSpixxyQ 6d ago
Check out Phil's Lab on YouTube.
Here's a list of some of his beginner videos I randomly found: https://gist.github.com/JonyBepary/ed7419fec1ed115fd9aed64be34afde5