all home built solar system

Author	Message
Murphy's friend Guru Joined: 04/10/2019 Location: Australia Posts: 674	Posted: 10:04am 20 Apr 2021         nickskethisniks said   Hi Peter, good work! Just 2 remarks. Try to draw all horizontal lines with 1 color and do the vertical in the other color (top or bottom) that way you will always be able to cross your traces. I only started recently with that, important when things get bigger and messier... It's always good to avoid 90degree corners, I thought it was difficult to do sharp corners for the manufacturer. And another tip for PCB layout for the home designer. Try to make the component pads as big as possible, I find those in the PCB program libraries useless for home soldering - unnecessarily small. Make the pads for connectors rectangular (with rounded corners perhaps), you get maximum surface are which will be appreciated if that part ever has to be unsoldered. Ditto for IC sockets. I usually make component pads (resistors, etc,) square for the same maximum surface reason. Double check all component pin diameters so they fit easily through the pad hole but also are not too loose so the component falls out when you turn the board over to solder the legs. The manufacturer will make track corners anyway you like, I see nothing wrong with 90 degrees. But the track separation in the above PCB is unnecessarily close, IMO, at some parallel tracks.