Spring 2016 AdBot Custom PCB Manufacturing

By Muhammad Maqbool (Manufacturing and Design)
Dang Le (Project Manager)

PCB layout was one of the hardest tasks to complete. We were left with no schematic. Our project manager worked on the schematic and the manufacturing engineer put together the layout. One of the problems our manufacturing engineer faced while doing the layout was the positioning of the pins that will be connected directly to the Arduino Uno. The dimensions for the pin placement were found online while keeping in mind the distance between Jlow and Analog should be 1.9”. The motors are placed on the right edge of the board so it is easy to connect or disconnect wires. All the capacitors are placed on the bottom right of the board so it is easy to put the components when the PCB arrives. We were not sure about the placement of the half bridges so the manufacturing engineer double checked it with the president and we ended up placing it between the pins that will be connected to the Arduino. They are kept close to the power source. For routing first I made a power bus of 0.18” and dragged it all the way down and then manually routed all the components that will be getting direct power from it. All the remaining wires are 0.016” thick. Source