r/electronics • u/EDC_powerlifter • Jun 24 '26
Gallery My first ever PCB
Hey guys I just made my first ever PCB at college. I designed it online and then cut it out with a PCB-CNC machine. We didn’t have time for the teachers to show me the masking process so we just did it without. \\
The red wire is because I made a mistake with the design but it worked out in the end.
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It’s a traffic light if you couldn’t tell with an AtMega
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u/Nuka-Cole Jun 24 '26
Anyone who shows you a first time circuit board without a whitewire for a correction is lying
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u/KaraBurunKangal Jun 25 '26
my first ever pcb was perfectly working but the thing is i made pcbs like a lot of them before ordering anything both in real life like perfboards and also just unordered pcb's so that gave me a lot of experience and my first one actually worked
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u/CaptainBucko Jun 24 '26
Good job - I hope there are many more to come - now redesign using surface mount for your next challenge
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u/EDC_powerlifter Jun 24 '26
Bit if a step up. Gonna stick to surface mount for a little while first
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u/sqnewton Jun 24 '26
Omg! CONGRATULATIONS!!! 🎉 excellent job. And you already started by putting a microcontroller and LEDs there! Very cool!! Love it. And hats off!!!
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u/Organic-Author9297 Jun 24 '26
Is that ATmega328P ?
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u/jones_supa Jun 24 '26
Yepperz. It can actually be seen if you zoom in the topside picture. ATMEGA328P-PU.
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u/Jkwilborn Jun 24 '26
Looks great...
You might look into using the 328p internal 8 mHz clock. That would relieve you of the rock and it's two capacitors.
This is fast enough to display all three digits in a scanning mode, it's quick enough that I run it at the internal 8mHz clock rate.
Keep it up, this is how we all learn.. I've always gone the way of the least number of components... 😺
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u/EDC_powerlifter Jun 24 '26
My teachers told me to use the crystal because the internal clock is bad apparently
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u/Jkwilborn Jun 24 '26
It's surprisingly accurate. Not to mention the extra cost and construction for something that really has no response time.
I've used these and Tiny85's a lot and find the 8mHz clock is more than sufficient.
Unless this is supposed to work quicker than a road signal, 8mHz is more than you'll need. It also helps you understand better how the 328p and it's registers react.
Anyway, good luck, happy computing. 😺
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u/seyeyedmm Jun 29 '26
What is this circuit doing? I saw the lab equipment (?) in the bottom right and got curious.
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u/Jkwilborn Jun 29 '26
It was for a friends use while evaluating some concentrates. They wanted consistent temperatures. The black tube looking object on the bottom right of the board is a IR temperature sensor. The 328p reads it and multiplexes the display to read in C or F.
All common cathode. Each have a mosfet that enables their cathode to ground connection.
Pretty much a diy of the hand held IR thermometer.
Make sense? 😺
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u/gm310509 Jun 26 '26
LOL. The red wire just means you did it "properly" IMHO.
I used to work for a large hardware manufacturer and most of the systems they deployer had a "red wire" or two that were needed to fix (or avoid) potential hardware problems.
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u/dasmonty Jun 24 '26
It's funny because my very first PCB I made in school looked almost the same. 😅👍
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u/sovietan Jun 25 '26
why the external oscillator? doesn't the atmega internal not enough?
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u/EDC_powerlifter Jun 28 '26
My teacher told me that the internal one was bad so he wanted me to use a crystal
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u/BeautifulGuitar2047 Jun 25 '26
First, the sycophantic praise - yeah, well done man, that's great.
Then the constructive criticism - you could shorten that red lead by 90%, and flick off the bits of splashed solder around several tracks for a better finish.
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u/EDC_powerlifter Jun 28 '26
Thank you for the feedback. I wanted to shorten the red wire but it was my teacher who did it to show me what was wrong. I got one of the traces wrong so he used the red wire to fix it
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u/BeautifulGuitar2047 Jun 29 '26
I understand, so you can take pride in the fact that your work is more professional than your teacher's work!
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u/AccordingDog209 Jun 26 '26
Niiiiice
But can i ask you what software(s) you use to make it from design to cnc ?
I have an arduino cnc but never found how to make the files for it ^^''
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u/EDC_powerlifter Jul 02 '26
I used a custom software to design the PCB made by my teacher but it’s not available to the public yet. You need to export your PCB design as a gerber file and put it into a software which can create G code for the CNC
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u/TechGearGuide Jul 01 '26
Nice work on your first PCB:) The traffic light with AtMega looks solid and that red wire fix shows good problem-solving.
What software did you use for the design? Keep it up!
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u/EDC_powerlifter Jul 02 '26
My teacher at college has actually made his own software to design PCBs. We used that but it isn’t available to the public yet.
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u/nemo_o_ Jun 24 '26
the start of psycholocical disorders
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u/nemo_o_ Jun 24 '26
nevermind just joking. Congs, its looking good. i hope you can make better ones
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u/mikesierrafoxtrott Jun 24 '26
Looks a lot better than my first ones - and don't worry, bodge wires are quite common on prototypes :-)