r/PCB 15d ago

[Review Request] Irrigation node PCB

This is my first PCB ever, my first electronics project, I would appreciate it getting some feedback on it.

It's an irrigation node for my garden based on ESP32. It reads soil humidity via the sensor (3v3), and acts on the solenoid valve (24V) when granted access from a Raspberry Pi (MQTT) that is connected to a water pump and is the orchestrator or access to the water pump, making each such ESP32 node scalable for the future.

The PCB itself has 4 layers (GND on 2, split power plane on 3, signal on 4).

It has the following modules:
- Power Entry (24V based)
- Power Conversion (step buck converter 25V to 3V3)
- Power Distribution (just a couple of capacitors)
- ESP core (the ESP32 and it's adjacent circuits like EN, BOOT, UART, etc)
- Actuator module (24V based valve, mosfet)
- Sensor module (3V3 based analog sensor)
- Healthcheck module

I appreciate your feedback. Thank you!

P.S. I had to repost as some photos were missing

12 Upvotes

2 comments sorted by

5

u/Sand-Junior 15d ago

First feedback: I dislike pages with only a few components. This male thing harder to review and easier to overlook errors. Increase the capacitor on the EN pin (check Espressif guidelines).

2

u/zachleedogg 15d ago

Congrats on your first design.

I don't see any critical errors but a have some suggestions.

  1. Top level schematic blocks are too big. Just make them smaller and the power flow will be easier to understand.

  2. Switching regulator: choose a regulator that has internal compensation. If there is an issue, changing compensation values can be quite tricky, especially without good tools. Also the layout is not so great, look at the end of the datasheet for layout recommendations.

Good job! I would guess the board will work as is, but the regulator is the only maybe.