PCB design check

Projekty i technologia Technikalia Ogólnie 💻
1

I just finished my first ever PCB design in KiCad. It might still go through a couple of iterations before I would send it off, however I was hoping someone experienced would be willing to have a look and point out some obvious mistakes :slightly_smiling_face:

image.png
image.png2084×2292 626 KB

Reactions: :mechanical_arm: ×1 (DoomHammer)

2

Is it a LED controller?

3

What gave it away? The LED STRIP 1, LED STRIP2, LED STRIP 3 labels? :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s my new Matter bed lights solution. I gave up on the nrf52840_dongle, since it’s not officially supported, now the esp32_h2, and 3 LED strips without individually addressable lights (cuts now a LOT on idle power…)

Reactions: :+1: ×1 (DoomHammer)

4

I hope in the future to put the buck converter as loose components, and also use the ESP32-H2 module (rather than the dev board). Then use a cheap external PWM generator (interestingly enough, the RP2040 seems to be the cheapest solution here, much cheaper than dedicated PWM chips :)).

Right now I have 3 colour temperature LED strips (which, quite honestly, is more than enough; after the initial coolness, I never use the fact that my led strip has RGB colours anymore…). The H2 is limited to 6 channel PWM.

I need two other LED strips for under the bed (which I may as well make RGB(WW)(CW), despite what I just said, mostly because I already bought them). Then the 16 PWM channels of the RP2040 would be exactly enough.

5

Hi. Board look really good but i have two pieces of advice to take into consideration. 1. weight of traces to esp look really thin, i would not make them thinner than on esp, if you are ordering board on JLCPCB or something like that it and have problem with making them thinner because of this thin road (image 1) it is better to make second layer on top and making them little thinner because thinner tracks have chance to snap and you don’t wont that.

6

image_1.png
image_1.png1296×771 253 KB

7
  1. before you order or make that please check if esp distances match your esp. i f#%4ed that up every time because some models on internet are just bad.

image.png
image.png577×915 108 KB

8

and one more. how do you mount the pcb? Do you thought about montage holes or will you mount board on some printed clips? I always forgot about the montage of the board itself

9

Hahaha that last thing I actually just thought about 5 minutes ago. Trying to save 5 cents by making the board smaller, and then having no mounting holes :rofl:

10

The other two, great comments! Thanks! I will check them out!

11

It’s indeed a footprint from the internet. Not from the official esp32 repo.

12

I’m thinking of ordering at these guys here in Gdańsk. 45zl for a one off board sounds pretty good to me.

13

25zl if I forego the bottom layer and just solder some wires to all the ground locations.

14

you can always mount it under the esp if you plan to mount it on connectors and not directly solder it to the board

image.png
image.png831×912 245 KB

image.png
image.png488×549 10 KB

image.png
image.png399×255 31.8 KB

Reactions: pink_heart ×1 (DoomHammer)

15

Yeah indeed. Or make a click-system in a 3d printed box.

16

But for now I will just make the whole thing a bit larger

17

I think I can actually also fix some routing issues if I’m willing to use a bit more space

18

sound good

19

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback!

20

sure. good luck, I’m here to help if you need anything

Reactions: :+1: ×1 (Claude)