Day 5 - Schematic and EDA
To learn KiCAD I recommend taking a look at some getting started tutorials:
- KiCad - Zero to Hero - YouTube
- KiCAD Tutorial 2019 | Learn KiCAD under 25 Minutes | Beginners guide - YouTube
For general circuit design
- Watching what the Core engineers make, and reverse engineer some boards
- Getting involved in different faculties - Electronics relys on math, science physics, the obious ones. But there are other skills that are applicable; writting good code relies on English, Taking one out of Medicine’s book as it relies on lots of interconnected systems and levels of survival (plus the brain is an amazing computer), etc etc
- Understanding electronics in general - and getting curcious about how stuff works helps lots here
After spending some time nutting out the schematic and plannging roughtly how everything will work together I think I’ve landed on a final design. I’ve learnt from someone that its worth getting something physical infront of you to review rather than trying to examine the digital copy.
This circuit is simiar to the ESP32-C3 Devboard, the circuit that I whipped up on the breadboard.
Mentioned breifly before I havent included the CP2102 as you can grab one for other projects and flashing multiple of the LED controllers - I plan to make a a DIY protoboard circuit so we can replicate the auto flashing circuit.(controlls the flash and reset pins)
The plan with the V1 of the board is to physically cut down the logic level converter to save a little bit of space - check out my other forum topic where I cut a Pico down
I’ve already started to consider the layout of the PCB, since there is effectively a ‘high power’ side of the board and one that is sensitive to RF considerations must be made to ensure there isnt any crosstalk (not sure if this is the correct jargon) between the sections).
ESP32_LED_Controller_v1.pdf (72.9 KB)
EDIT: Updated schematic, fixed the shorting caused by the MOSFET
