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geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: cirrus82 on Mon, 16 December 2013, 22:24:59

Title: Learning PCB
Post by: cirrus82 on Mon, 16 December 2013, 22:24:59

Hi All,

So I've decided to jump in and start learning how to build my own PCB.  I'm a software developer who's done limited work on hardware and is relying on a highschool level knowledge of electronics.  I'm willing to throw away life savings at this (well, some of them).  This should be fun :)

So to start it off, I'm looking a little bit at the necessary components and the basics of a keyboard PCB seems to consist of:

• the electrical circuitry wiring the switches into a matrix
• diodes for each switch
• a microcontroller - yay, I can write this code!
• some kind of USB input (output?) connected to the microcontroller (henceforth named mikey)

Let's leave LEDs out of it for a brief moment (hope to get back to this in the future).

Some things to consider are:

• Series/Parallel, I'm assuming this affects a lot of the requirements for current/voltage and greatly determines the makeup of the matrix.
• Current/Voltage for mikey
• NKRO, I read in the wiki that the diodes help for this, but no clue why...

I'm hoping others are interested to learn these specifics too and fulfill the quest to build the world's greatest keyboard. Help?

Title: Re: Learning PCB
Post by: metalliqaz on Mon, 16 December 2013, 22:33:08

read moar geekhack

Title: Re: Learning PCB
Post by: jdcarpe on Mon, 16 December 2013, 22:37:09

You will want to start here, at our good friend komar's blog. Once you understand how the keyboard matrix functions, you can move on to KiCAD tutorials.

http://blog.komar.be

Title: Re: Learning PCB
Post by: cirrus82 on Mon, 16 December 2013, 23:34:55

That blog is awesome. Thanks!

Title: Re: Learning PCB
Post by: bearcat on Tue, 17 December 2013, 15:12:49

Definitely checkout circuits.io and upverter.com -- they are PCB design tools as in-browser webapps.  They're a bit easier to use when getting started than KiCAD or Eagle, and you don't have to worry about installation, licenses, dependencies, bla bla bla. 

Then, once you've done a few, the KiCAD & Eagle tutorials will make a lot more sense ;)

Enjoy & good luck!

Title: Re: Learning PCB
Post by: kyb on Thu, 19 December 2013, 14:51:49

For starters you don't really need a PCB made to build your first prototype. You can solder the switches directly together with wire. Like in the first image from this blog post: http://blog.fsck.com/2012/12/building-a-keyboard-part-2.html

I used this method to get my proof of concept working. But later you will want to make custom PCBs because soldering switches together with wire is a major pain :)

Title: Re: Learning PCB
Post by: yakitysax on Thu, 19 December 2013, 14:59:58

Do any of you know if any English KiCAD books exist? The only book on KiCAD specifically that I have found is in Spanish.