Tips for first routing?

[golkit1]

I made this board:

From this schematics:

I would like to try and route it myself instead of using freerouting tools. How difficult it can be? Any tips I should follow?

[RaptorUK]

Off topic for this Forum so changed to Projects category . . .

[paulvdh]

You have made nice looking rows of all parts, but as a result the wires from your CD40106 IC’s are going to be long and complicated. You also have not left much room for routing or for a GND plane. A better place for them is probably to put the big row of resistors more to the south, and then rotate the two IC’s 90 degrees and put them in between the resistors and the capacitors + BJT’s in the north. Doing some (manual) gate swapping between those two IC’s is probably also needed. But it’s difficult to see without having the actual routing first.

Here a link to one of the more elaborate PCB reviews on this website. Most of it can easily be generalized and used for other PCB designs too.

Seek review my first PCB design

Hello – Please find linked compressed project folder, contents of which I seek review and feedback. Much appreciated. LoPower2.zip The design is an environmental sensor, just temp and light, baro and humidity. Laid out on proto board about four years ago, near continuous service over that time. Had to clean a spider nest from one so decided to take plunge and design a pcb. Sensor data is broadcast to receiver and logged to SD card, basically. Thank you in advance, Mark

Routing a PCB properly is also something that needs experience. First placing all the parts and only then starting the routing is not the best way to do it. My usual method is to do it in clumps of parts that connect to each other, and do both the placement and the routing for such a block. The first few PCB you route will be quite time consuming, but once you get a better feel for what works (and what does not work) you will create your own way of working and it will become much quicker. You can only get there with experience. No one else can teach you that. (And you can’t get there with Freerouter either).

For the “simple things” I find the “fake autorouter” in KiCad quite useful:

1. Move the mouse cursor onto a pad.
2. Press X to start a track from that pad.
3. Press F to Finish that track to the nearest pad.

You can do a lot of the short tracks quickly by putting two fingers from one hand on those two keys. KiCad also has more functions in the “fake autorouter” (such as routing a whole footprint (or block?)) but I do not make much use of them myself. Maybe I would use them if I routed more PCB’s.

For the rest, it is indeed “off topic” for this forum as RaptorUK also already mentioned. This forum tries to limit itself to how KiCad itself works, but the limits of what is on/off topic are a bit vague and also depend on the mood that the people who are responding have at that particular moment.

[eelik]

You have 6 identical “channels”, this calls for hierarchical sheets. You draw one channel to one sheet, then copy the sheet box. The layout can be replicated with the ReplicateLayout plugin.

[golkit1]

Never heard of it. Will look into it

[bambuino]

@paulvdh Aloha! I am so flattered everytime I see my very first KiCAD project posted up here. Thank you Paul, and all the great folks that are here in support of this community. Best regards, Mark.