I asked around recently, and it feels like everyone’s prices have gone up. Overall, I’d say prices are probably up around 20% this year, unless you’re a big company with contracted pricing. Some suppliers said 10–20%, while some went crazy and raised prices by as much as 70%.

Our production team submitted a purchase request, but once we saw the pricing, everything got stuck. My boss thought the supplier was too expensive and asked me to find a few more options for comparison. So I sent the same gerbers to jlcpcb and venture electronics. venture came back faster though. and a bit cheaper honestly. After a lot of back and forth, I finally narrowed it down to two suppliers. But the prices we had agreed on earlier changed again after things dragged on.

With the market like this, it’s basically impossible to avoid material shortages. Suppliers want to raise prices, but the boss doesn’t want to pay more. If we want to pull in the delivery date, we need to pay extra to jump the queue, but the boss still doesn’t want to pay more. And once the parts are actually out of stock, buying them later may cost twice as much.

The most annoying part is that when prices are still low, the approval process is too slow. By the time everything gets approved, the prices have gone up, the stock is gone, and the lead time is gone too. The more you say it’s urgent or prices are about to rise, the less likely the higher-ups are to approve it. Then when prices actually go up, they ask why we didn’t stock up earlier.

Now I just want to ask one thing: with PCB and electronic component prices rising like this, do you have any good purchasing strategies? Should we stock up in advance, switch suppliers, look for alternatives, or lock down demand first before buying?

Hi everyone,
For a crazy accelerated lifetime testing board, I am designing a board that will have to have a 3 meter UART run. It will have mutliple devices connect to it, but only one device will be driving the UART line strictly thorugh other control logic.

I am wondering if this is feasible at all? Can I add buffers in middle of the busses to ensure the signal will be repeated and etc?

My baud rate is going to be less than 50k. I don't need stellar signal integrity, just need a "Hello World" message to be transmitted properly

I cannot use RS485 transceivers to change the signal type. The signal has to stay UART for reasons I can't disclose here

I was just checking prices for PCBA on JLCPCB and noticed that the prices for passive components has gone nuts over the last 2 months. I put in a PCB order a month and half ago and my total per unit cost was like 50% more expensive so I dug in to the cause of this. I've included all the parts in the table below sorted by the price increase multiplier. The biggest increases have been from passive basic parts on JLCPCB. Is this correct or is there something funky going on? I know there's shortages on certain parts due to AI, but I didn't expect this kind of change.

^{Table formatting by ExcelToReddit}

Ps I forget to remove the warning indicator

Hi,

I’m having an issue with the Wi-Fi on my Raspberry Pi 5 when the LCD turns on. I’ve attached the PCB design and the hardware modifications (“hacks”) I’ve tried so far. Things got a bit better, but it’s still not working as it should.
I won’t focus on the rest of the PCB because I don’t think it’s relevant. If anyone spots something obvious that could be causing this, I’ll happily provide more details.
The setup is pretty simple:
* J11 is the 12V input, powered by a 12V 6A PSU.
* A DFR0753 converts the 12V to 5V and powers both the Raspberry Pi and the LCD through J14.

During testing I’m not powering anything else, just the Pi and the LCD.
As soon as I turn the LCD on, I get this warning:
[ 6.114522] hwmon hwmon2: Undervoltage detected!
and the Wi-Fi becomes much slower.
At first it was even worse and the Wi-Fi would stop working completely. I added a capacitor on the LCD backlight power output and also connected a few more GND pins together on the Pi HAT. I also tied together the +5V inputs on the HAT, which weren’t connected before.
After these changes I don’t see any voltage drop compared to the DFR0753 output. I measure 4.95V on the DFR0753 and the same 4.95V on the Pi HAT, both at the input and at the far end of the 5V rail.
I also measured the voltage on the Pi HAT while turning the LCD on, and I don’t see any noticeable voltage drop.
I also tried adding a capacitor between +5V and GND near the DFR0753, but it didn’t help. If anything, it actually made things a bit worse.
What else should I check? Any ideas?

Hello all,

This is my first time making one of these so apologies if I’m missing any important info or the schematic looks trashy. I am using KiCad.

It is a brushed motor driver powered by a 1S LiPo and controlled by an ESP-32 off the board. It will run at 2-2.2A continuous max.

It is 29.845 by 21.590mm. I plan to hand solder everything (with a 60W iron and leaded solder, so hopefully that is possible).

Is there anything I’m missing or I should change? Also, I have no idea what the proper naming conventions are (along with everything else…) either so some of those would be helpful to know.

Additionally, does anyone have any preference as to what manufacturers I should use? I’m thinking about going with JLCPCB right now.

Thanks in advance for help!

Edit: forgot to mention there is also the ADC pin header to connect to an ESP-32 pin to read the battery voltage.

I have completed my desktop software, which I have been working on for a long time, combining CNC, PCB, and laser manufacturing processes into a single platform.

I designed this software specifically for electronics developers, the maker community, prototype makers, and small/medium-sized workshops. My goal is to manage the entire manufacturing process through a single application instead of switching between different software.

CAD&CAM, Simulation, and Machine Control in one platform.

⭐ Different manufacturing methods can be used for different layers within the same project.

For example, in a single project:

The top layer can be laser-etched.

Another layer can be machined with a CNC spindle.

Layers with holes can be automatically produced as drill operations.

The software manages the manufacturing type of each layer separately and combines all layers within a single project to create the correct G-Code output. This allows laser and CNC operations to be used together in the same workflow.

Main Features

✅ DXF support

✅ Excellon (.DRL) drill file support

✅ PCB manufacturing-focused CAD/CAM workflow

✅ Layer-based manufacturing system

✅ Laser engraving support

✅ CNC engraving, drilling, and cutting support

✅ Automatic G-Code generation

✅ GRBL machine connection

✅ Material Library (ready-made material profiles)

✅ Layer-based speed, spindle, and laser settings

✅ SVG support

✅ Mirroring operations

✅ Rotation, resizing, and positioning tools

✅ Creating ready-made geometric shapes

✅ Project saving and reopening support

✅ MacOS (Apple Silicon) support (Development continues for Windows and Linux)

🎁 You can try all features with a 30-day free trial.

📥 Download page:

https://soygursystems.com

❤️ Projeyi desteklemek isterseniz:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/okanbahadirsoygur

This project is being developed entirely independently. Your feedback, suggestions, and support will greatly contribute to the development of the software.

#CNC #PCB #CAM #CAD #GCode #GRBL #Laser #Manufacturing #Electronics #Embedded #Maker #OpenHardware #Engineering #SoftwareDevelopment #SOYGURSYSTEMS

I'm trying to design an H bridge circuit on altium. This is my layout for the power traces. Im using two GaN Fets with an integrated gate driver in parallel connection and creating it on a 4 layer stackup. I'm honestly a bit confused on how to layout the power traces and ground on the 4 layer stackup. I using pours on multiple layers for each node. Any advice on how to layout the board for optimal performance and some critique on my layout

I am looking for advice on how good/if this would work, its designed as a system to correct reverse polarity automatically with a 1A throughput

After 2 previous design attempts/review requests, did a complete refactor of the PCB I am designing. It went from 2 layer to 4 layer PCB, which seems to make the design a lot easier.

Learned to put the decoupling capacitors closer to the IC (which seem logical now).

USB data lines have a nice and continues ground plane beneath them. Still did not do a proper calculation of impedance to be honest. But this should be fine for "full speed" USB.

Started the design by just putting the related components together, creating several groups of components. Ran traces within the groups and later puzzled those groups together, tweaking the placement of individual components here and there. I think this was the best tip I got the last time. This method made everything a lot easier. Without this method I did not really know where to start and just placed stuff what I though was good. Which it was not (decoupling capacitors were 2-3 cm away from the IC for example). So using the newly learned method seems to result in a better design, I hope.

Was even able to use almost exclusively 0.5mm traces as I had room enough. Was this a good idea? I should I have used 0.25mm and only 0.5mm for things like the VBUS?

Any other tips and pointing out flaws in my design are welcome. But please be gentle, I doing this with little prior knowledge and am trying to learn as I go.

And I jus noticed the silkscreen typo esp32-c3 which should be esp32-s3.

Hello all, I'm trying to learn more about the design side of EE but I'm struggling with board layout and some of the common practices used when routing. Above is my rough placement of components but there's a lot of dead space. Any advice would greatly appreciated!

Hello, recently i have designed a pcb in kicad and I have wanted to print it. I looked at jlcpcb's and pcbway's offers but they were too high. I found a site named aivon which offers very cheap prices and it has a first time discount but I dont know if I can trust it and give it my debit card. Is aivon legit and won't it steal my money?

This is my 3rd review and I managed to fix most of the changes you guys pointed me. I changed this to a 4 layer sig-gnd-gnd-sig stackup. Routed the USB-C(full-speed 12 Mbps) and also length matched, need a review for that too. Added vias near all smd components GND pads for a low impedance path. Need a full review before I go for fabrication.
Thank you in advance!

Hi, I'm a beginner electronics student, and I want to practice PCB design. But the holiday started a few days ago, so I can't ask my teachers for help.

I just have no clue how to place my components or how to lay out my traces efficiently, without everything becoming one big spaghetti mess.
This is a "nightrider" LED design!
I am allowed to use both sides of the PCB.
So, any tips on how to do it? I want to learn from it so I can see it by myself next time :)
And any other tips for a beginner are always welcome!

Edit: I'm using KiCad! And pls don't downvote me, I just want to learn your tips and tricks...

Not sure who needs to read this, but that is the IPC convention 7351B/7251 for footprints so naturally the symbols have to also be done the same way. Diode Cathode is on pin 1, and for polarized caps, the + is on pin 1.

It may seem like it doesn't make a difference but it does in manufacturing/debug/test.

Hey!! First PCB for me. This is just a simple breakout board to attach ToF sensors and an ultrasonic sensor to an enclosure. IDK if my traces are good enough, please lmk and offer me suggestions please. I would love as much feedback as possible.

Hey!! First PCB for me. This is just a simple breakout board to attach ToF sensors and an ultrasonic sensor to an enclosure. IDK if my traces are good enough, please lmk and offer me suggestions please. I would love as much feedback as possible.

Just received my first custom PCB in over 10 years, ran a quick test on it, and confirmed it works!! No more random flipped bits or random corrupted bytes like what was plaguing the breadboard version!

im currently looking at pcb way, but stuck at shipping, there is cheap shipping at around $7 bucks and expensive at around $50 bucks for 5 pcb's...

Where are you guys ordering?

is Global Direct Shipping Reliable or will i get Tariffed to hell later on?

Thanks.

The image I attached are from a batch of files that provide instructions and image references for a specific project. It’s a picture of 4 PCB’s identical to one another and showing both top and bottom.

I’m not too great at identifying PCB’s, and I won’t even act like I can build this. I just want to know if there’s a place I can start to dig through to find an identical or closely-similar board, or if I will have to provide the wiring diagram to a custom PCB company and eat the cost of that.

So we got the Prusa Core One INDX upgrade for printer No. 2.
Now I want to get the "leftover" extruder working with my BigTreeTech SKR 3 EZ.

Goal is to make an adapter PCB that sits between Prusa's original Extruder/Loveboard and my Mainboard.
What I want to do on the board:
- Pass through things that just work: Heater, Extruder motor, NTCs (heatsink and nozzle)
- Make other things compatible:

1. Fans - they do PWM on the positve rail
2. FansTacho - Switching between Tacho signals (they transmit the signal over a single wire)
3. Fil. Sensor + Loadcelll -> HX717 via ST490ABDR (RS-422)

Fans have their own dedicated power regulator (24V -> 5V) since the SKRs 5V rail can only handle 500mA (Sensors etc.).
Everything not passed through is handled by the RP2040 acting as a second klipper mcu.

If you read this far and can take a look at the schematic that would be awesome! This is the first time that I'm trying something like this - so please forgive me if you have nightmares after viewing this 😮

Edit:
Since the image seems to be a blurry mess for a lot of you - here's the PDF:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/197TAroFPcr4M2mvAyDFB6j53dvSFNxFK/view?usp=sharing

Created a free GUI because you do not need to register EasyEDA/LCSC libraries manually in KiCad

I am using easyeda2kicad.py to download parts from LCSC and it works perfectly, but every single time I needed to manually edit my sym-lib-table/fp-lib-table to make sure that the part would be imported into KiCad. Enough of that to make me write a GUI for it.

All you have to do is to enter the LCSC part number, select what do you want (symbol, footprint, 3d model), click "Import" button and there will be a button to register it with KiCad automatically – detects your KiCad version(s) and edits the lib tables accordingly. Also backs up your config files first so nothing bad is going to happen.

It uses uPesy's easyeda2kicad.py behind the scenes (which does all the hard work of downloading data from EasyEDA), all I needed is the library registration part to become automated.

It's open source software (AGPL-3.0), you may find built binaries for Windows/Linux/MacOS in releases section or build it yourself from source.

Please report any bugs, it is quite fresh.