PCB Design

Explore & Discover

Every electronic device you own — your phone, your game controller, your headphones — has a printed circuit board (PCB) hiding inside it. A PCB is a flat board with copper paths that connect electronic components so electricity can flow between them. Pull up some photos of bare PCBs on Google Images and zoom in — notice the green board, copper traces, and tiny components. Watch the YouTube series "How to Make Your First PCB" by Phil's Lab to see what professional PCB design looks like. Then browse oshpark.com to see real boards designed by hobbyists and makers. You're ready for the next step when you can identify the board, traces, pads, and components in a PCB photo.

Learn the Basics

Download KiCad, the free professional PCB design tool used by engineers worldwide — get it at kicad.org. It's the same software serious hardware engineers use, and it's completely free. Work through the official KiCad "Getting Started" tutorial at docs.kicad.org — it walks you through creating your first schematic. A schematic is like a map of your circuit: it shows which components connect to which, using symbols instead of drawings. Learn what resistors, capacitors, LEDs, and microcontrollers look like in schematic form. You're ready for the next step when you can open KiCad, start a new project, and place five different component symbols on a schematic sheet.

Build Your First Project

Design your first real PCB — an LED blinker circuit. Your circuit needs just four components: a coin cell battery holder, a resistor, an LED, and a switch. Draw the schematic in KiCad first, then use the "Assign Footprints" tool to connect each symbol to its physical size. Switch to the PCB Layout editor and route your copper traces connecting the pads. Keep traces short and avoid sharp 90-degree angles. The KiCad documentation at docs.kicad.org and Phil's Lab YouTube videos show you exactly how the layout editor works. You're ready for the next step when you have a complete PCB layout with all four components placed and all traces routed with no errors.

Experiment & Iterate

Now iterate your design using the Design Rule Check (DRC) tool built into KiCad. Run DRC and fix every error it flags — things like traces too close together or pads not fully connected. Then export your Gerber files, which are the industry-standard files sent to manufacturers. Upload your Gerbers to oshpark.com or jlcpcb.com using their free Gerber viewer to see a realistic 3D preview of your board. Spot any problems and go back to fix them in KiCad. Try adding your name or a small Utah mountain silhouette as copper artwork on the back of the board — it costs nothing extra. You're ready for the next step when your Gerber files pass the manufacturer's online DRC with zero errors.

Advanced Techniques

Go advanced by designing a PCB with a microcontroller — the chip that makes the board actually think. Add an ATtiny85 chip to your design in KiCad. This tiny chip can be programmed with Arduino code to blink an LED in patterns, read a button, or make a sound. Study the ATtiny85 datasheet to understand its pinout — reading datasheets is a core skill every hardware engineer uses daily. Add a programming header (a row of pins) so you can upload code after assembly. SparkFun's "How to Read a Schematic" guide at learn.sparkfun.com explains datasheet concepts in plain English. You're ready for the next step when your ATtiny85 PCB design passes DRC and includes a complete power circuit and programming header.

Final Project Showcase

Design, order, and assemble a real physical PCB — your most ambitious project yet. Come up with an original idea: a wearable badge for a school event, a tiny Wasatch ski resort altitude tracker, or a custom game button controller. Design the full schematic and PCB layout in KiCad, export Gerbers, and order boards from JLCPCB (jlcpcb.com offers five boards for around five dollars). When your boards arrive, solder the components on using a soldering iron, apply power, and verify it works. Photograph your finished board and share it in a maker community like reddit.com/r/PrintedCircuitBoard. You're ready for the next step when you are holding a working PCB that you designed from scratch and built yourself.