Hi,
With Altium being included in the voucher booklet, I was wondering where teams use custom PCBs in their robots?
Also, is there a particular guide for PCBs for FRC, or is it a more general subject? Or are custom PCBs just really fancy versions of gauged wires?
We’re completely new to PCB designing, in case you couldn’t tell lol.
Thanks.
Team 118 recently showed off some nifty custom PCBs in this post: 2024 Robonauts Resources Release (Pit Writeup, Handbook & More)
We’ve used custom PCBs for MXP boards, custom encoders, NeoPixel drivers, and most recently CAN terminal block boards to simplify swerve wiring:
Learning PCB design is a good off-season project. I’m not sure I’d attempt it during build season.
We did a similar thing for our swerve wiring, but with the addition of a 3dp case to hold the power wires also.
I realize this is a non-answer, but you can use a custom PCB for nearly anything you can think of (as long as you’re still using approved parts where they’re required). They can be used as break-out boards which are “just really fancy versions of wires” or much more advanced functions. Don’t discount breakout boards though, they can be great for integrating something a Pi or Arduino with, say, light strings in one neat package.
Altium has a bit of a steep learning curve but they also have a lot of resources to learn. The Altium Academy YouTube channel has quite a few videos and their getting started series is a good primer. It’s a few versions out of date but is still worth the time. Altium has a habit of having three ways to do everything because they don’t really remove features, so a lot of methods in older videos will still work.
Altium Academy - Getting Started With Altium: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3aaAq2OJU5H_Jj72DObh5kNh6Nr4xNS0
They also have a bunch of training resources on their site; it can look a little daunting but slow and steady wins the race here. You need to register for an account to watch them, though I’m not sure if you also have to have a license (the free sponsor one) attached or not. Give it a whirl and see if it works.
As for a starting point, a lot of people begin with the PCB equivalent of a blinky program with a simple led circuit. Do some searching for beginner PCB projects to get ideas. If your design doesn’t work the first time that’s okay, most of us have had that experience. Most of our complicated prototypes at work have errors that need debugging and rework; it’s a normal part of the process.
You can get cheap PCB’s from a few places. OshPark is a batch company, which means they collect lots of designs and submit them for manufacture once they have a large order to get the good pricing. JLC PCB is a Chinese company with extremely good pricing and high quality boards, which usually deliver in about a week. PCBWay is similar to JLC. It won’t let me add more than two links in a post but you can google those three easily.
Do you have more information on how you’re using these to simplify the wiring?
I’m looking for some simple projects to begin teaching schematic capture and PCB design to some of our students. I’ve been working on a WS2812 LED controller board but the power side (20A+) is beyond a beginner level and not something I want to throw at them immediately.
Thanks for all the responses!
While CAN is a daisy-chained bus, short stubs of less than a foot are OK at bus speeds of 1 Mb/S. One of these CAN terminal block boards goes next to each swerve module, with the main bus coming and going at the end terminals. The 3 side facing pairs connect to the drive Falcon, steer Falcon, and steering CANcoder. We’ve used them for low current power distribution as well.
Our Neopixel controller is really just a carrier PCB for a Arduino Micro with a 5V, 3A switching regulator on board.
