Help me design a PCB based on AN1307 (dsPic stepper motor driver) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: AlessandroAU
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2013, 08:21:53 pm
content: Hi, I'm a mechanical engineering student with an interest in electronics, I want to design and create a scaled down version of microchip's reference design for stepper motor control:http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/01307a.pdfThis will be one of the many milestones in the road to building an advanced 3D printer.I'm removing all of the extra circuity and replacing the discrete mosfets with 5A integrate H-bridgeshttp://inside.mines.edu/~whoff/courses/EENG383/reference/H-bridge.pdfThis way I save space and don't have to worry about mosfets drivers as the integrated H-bridge has TTL input.I've never actually laid out a board before. I want to eventually have a small run of these produced (just the pcb, to be hand soldered) I just want to know if I'm making any blaring mistakes with pcb layout.Here's what I tried to do:1. Separated power and signal sections of the pcb.2. Beefed up the traces for the current carrying tracks (how do I calculate how big the via's need to be?)3. Placed components so that they were roughly near the chip they needed to be. I kept traces going from the sense resistors as short as I could. Decoupling caps as close as I can get them etc.4. Let the autorouter rip.To me it seems like I just sprinkled the components sudo-randomly and hit the magic make button. I guess this is a learning experience, but I want to be able to get a working platform out it. I'm really just looking for someone who has experience to call me an idiot and push me in the right directionHere is the schematic/layout

author: AlessandroAU
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 02, 2013, 08:22:53 pm
content: For some reason I can't post multiple attachments?Edit: It seems I can if I do multiple edits, am I retarded or is this my browser?

author: RodrigoAlonso
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 29, 2014, 02:46:57 am
content: Hi, I'm a eletrical engineering student from brazil, could you please post the source code?

author: Phaedrus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2014, 03:18:43 am
content: I know this is a necro, but I'd just like to point out that Alessandro's layout skills have improved dramatically. Looks like he might go far. Good on ya'!A few quibbles still, of course--look out for those right angle turns, the electrons will fall right out!

author: AlessandroAU
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2014, 10:01:41 am
content: Quote from: RodrigoAlonso on July 29, 2014, 02:46:57 amHey, I don't actually have my own source code, I was trying to copy microchips' reference design, you can find their source code here:http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/AppNotes/01307A.pdfhttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jXAZpeFnOskJ:www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg%3FIdcService%3DSS_GET_PAGE%26nodeId%3D1824%26appnote%3Dcn546027+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=auQuote from: Phaedrus on July 29, 2014, 03:18:43 amHaha thankstrying to learn, what you see here are the first and second layouts I've ever done