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Introduction

The purpose of this guide is to serve as a beginner-friendly walkthrough on how to create a PCB from a schematic using Altium Designer. You can find many such guides on the internet in both video and text form (Several good recommendations are made here!), but this guide has the benefit of being tailored to the specific standards and conventions used by Northeastern Electric Racing. This document was created by Walter Stadolnik (Unlicensed) , so feel free to poke him if anything seems outdated/incorrect.

About the demo board

As a demo, I’ll be walking through step-by-step as I do the layout for a custom Raspberry Pi Debug Probe. Not to be confused with a Raspberry Pi computer, this probe uses a RPi 2040 microcontroller, and is used to convert between USB and UART or SWD when flashing a board. In our 2024 competition vehicle, we’ll be embedding two copies of this circuit into our /wiki/spaces/NER/pages/63275033 in order to wirelessly flash the microcontrollers and FPGA on the /wiki/spaces/NER/pages/63209494 and the /wiki/spaces/NER/pages/100925527.

The Raspberry Pi Debug probe provides fully open-source schematics, which can be found here. Below is my adaptation of these schematics for use in our vehicle. My only notable additions are the consolidation of the two output JST connectors into a single PicoBlade connector, and the addition of a 3.3V output so that the probe can power the microcontroller or FPGA on the board being programmed. The USB micro connector was also swapped for USB-C in my design, and some additional LED was added to indicate the 3.3V rail is receiving power.

Step 1 - Verify Schematics + Components

So, you’ve finished up a circuit schematic. Great! Now it’s time to turn it into a PCB.

~ But wait! ~

First, make sure that:

  • Your schematic has been reviewed - all schematics need to be reviewed before moving on to layout. Trust us - it’s no fun to have to change your design in the middle of routing a board.

  • You’ve addressed all the concerns from design review - make sure that you’ve thoroughly responded to all feedback in your review document.

  • Make sure all your components are marked as “Ready to Review” - Ideally all components will be reviewed before layout - it’s better to catch stuff like incorrect land patterns before getting too deep in the weeds of routing. But at the very least, all components should be marked as “ready to review,” and your head or the chief EE should be notified before you begin.

Step 2 - Set up the Board

You’re schematics are good to go, and your components are reviewed. Now what?

First, you’re gonna need a PCB document.

Open the Projects Panel (Panels → Projects), click on the

Step 3 - Place Components

Step 4 - Route Components

Step 5 - Generate Deliverables

Step 6 - Order the Board and components

Summary

General Tips and Tricks

  • If this is your first board at NER, I highly recommend perusing the Altium vault and checking out our previous designs. You can learn a lot about layout technique by simply observing other people’s work

  • Don’t take this document too seriously! While I generally follow good practices, what counts as “good practice” varies massively depending on who you ask. While most of these tips are good for this club, you may find that your co-ops will tell you something entirely different. If anything seems outdated, or questionable, feel free to add a comment!

Shortcuts used in this tutorial:

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