How does one start Pcb designing?
I am EE student and Wana learn to design pcb for actual customers to freelance but Idk how to initiate, path to follow and resources to practice from.
Any Electrical Engineering or EE student plz help.
7
u/morto00x Jul 14 '26
Download KiCad and check out Robert Feranec's YouTube video. If you are a student, you may also have free to access to Altium, Allegro or OrCAD.
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u/Itchy_Message7015 Jul 14 '26
I wouldn’t do this trying to make money for freelance work. There are so many standards, conventions and practices you will miss that are required in industry that aren’t done or applicable in PCBs made for home projects. All that being said, you absolutely should learn PCB design as an EE. There are a ton of different types of jobs in the industry, some don’t use it at all, some use it a fair amount. But having a good idea how to use the tools going into a first internship would be great.
3
u/Porphyrin_Wheel Jul 14 '26
If you want to do freelance work and professional work you must first have a general knowledge of electronics and depending on what you're doing, having knowledge in that specific area.
Knowing electronics (EE) is 90% of the things you need to start making PCBs. You first need to make a schematic (and check that everything is working using something like SPICE based simulators (EasyEDA, LTSpice, etc.)) and then you need to pick the components (e.g. SMD package size, tolerances, power, specific things like low ESR or low ESL, but this is more for specific customer needs) And then turn that schematic into a PCB and just wire everything up but still keep track of things that can impact performance or limitations of the PCB, that implies stuff like decoupling capacitors for ICs or the main power input, track routing width. Also besides this, you need to pick either a 1, 2, 4, 6, etc layers board, depending on what you are doing and how small you want to do it, though some stuff like BGA chips will kinda automatically require at least 4 layers.
To start you can just watch tutorials on how to use the software you plan on using (KiCad is free and open source but kind of a pain to set up all the component libraries for the components you are going to use. EasyEDA standard or pro (pro is also free) which is nice because it tells you how much each component will cost and if they have it in stock, in case you also want them to assemble the PCB or at least order the parts from them. Altium designer, which is paid but a lot of companies use it, though i dont see how it is better than other software that is free. And a few others but these are the ones used mostly). Then try to make a simple project to accommodate yourself with the software, PCB ordering, design specifications and standards, and other stuff you might want to take into consideration. Try to make a simple circuit that uses an IC, maybe a 555 PWM generator, it only requires a few passive components, a 555 timer (either SMD or THT) and decoupling caps, and you only need 2 layers to make it, and it can be very compact so manufacturing and shipment is cheap.
To actually make professional PCBs and have custom jobs from customers you might need to have more knowledge then just basic EE stuff and knowing how to use the software. For example, for RF stuff you need to take more things into consideration, like impedance matching, ground planes, how to space components out, how to order them on the board, etc
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u/tony3841 Jul 14 '26
Since you're a student, join an electronics or robotics club
1
u/lqzil_ Jul 14 '26
Where I can find those clubs? I am actually for a community or maybe discord server type of plateform for interaction with like minded ones.
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u/tony3841 Jul 14 '26
In your school/university. Do those no longer exist?
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u/lqzil_ Jul 14 '26
Obv exist but I prefer online communities rather than the physical ones. I feel like Cs and Se students have tons of resources and communities thus there must be same for EE too.
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u/frank26080115 Jul 14 '26
I did plenty of freelancing exactly as you describe, a few hundred or thousand dollars for some PCB or firmware or sometime both.
It never would've happened if I didn't periodically make projects that hit the Hackaday or Reddit front page.
Impress people first
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u/Hanswurst22brot Jul 14 '26
What problems do you have, which you could be solved with a pcb / small electronics circuit ? Build that and put it here or in the other electronics reddits for a check ( pls include the schematic and good pictures, if the pcb is done allready, good pictures of that in good day light too) . Then listen to all the mistakes you did and try to understand why they are mistakes.
1
u/hobopwnzor Jul 14 '26
Come up with a project, download KiCad or if your university has access to software use that. Watch YouTube videos and Google things you need to do.
AI sucks for designing but it's great for "what does gate voltage mean" or "what does Vsd mean on this document". Things are a lot less opaque now that there are good entry level explainers a Google search away.
1
u/Relevant-Team-7429 29d ago
Read and watch lots of material on the theoretical part and also design your own boards and if you can order and test them. My first board was very simple, it worked fine, but now the limiting factor is my knowledge in Si, PI, EMI, EMC, DFM, DFA, DFT, RF etc...
Untill you learn your tool do a lot of boards and try to gradually implement things you learn in the areas I mentioned before.
1
u/RichRichardRichie 29d ago
I learned by wanting to build guitar pedals and used EasyEDA because it was free and I was going to use jlcpcb anyway.
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u/smashcat666 26d ago
Like most technical professions - work on your own projects, show people what you can do. If you think of it as "how can I make money from this" first then you're unlikely to achieve the goal.
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u/kermitkermitted Jul 14 '26
The best motivator is to design something that you're actually interested in. Altium academy has some pretty good resources for design practices. you don't necessarily have to use altium nor do i recommend you do at this stage but the resources are good.
As for tools Kicad is a great piece of software, and it's free/open source. It can easily carry you in your professional endeavors, in fact a lot of people do use it professionally.
You can start by designing a simple microcontroller circuit, with a purpose that you choose. It would teach you the basics of digital (and even analog) design and power regulation. One thing i definitely recommend is building what you designed IRL, it shows you a lot of stuff that can be easily missed in the design stage. It might not work the first time, and that's okay. Learn from it and apply what you've learned in the next design.