Beginner looking for advice: EDA tools + how people debug thermal issues? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: camellos
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 03:39:21 am
content: Hi everyone,I'm a beginner in electronics and recently got curious about designing my own PCBs. I’ve been doing some breadboard stuff for a while, but now I’d like to move to something more permanent (and less messy 😅).I started checking out EDA tools like KiCad and EasyEDA — still figuring out which one suits me better. Any tips for total beginners are super welcome!But there’s something else that caught my attention:A friend showed me a small board he designed, and one of the voltage regulators was getting really hot — almost too hot to touch. He said it was drawing more current than expected, but he also mentioned that he used a thermal camera to figure out where the heat was concentrated.That got me thinking… do people actually use thermal cameras often during PCB debugging? Or is that more of an advanced/pro-level thing?Just curious if it’s something worth learning about, even as a beginner. 🤔Would love to hear how others usually detect these kinds of issues — current draw, hotspots, wrong layout, etc.Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any advice or resources you can share!

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 05:02:33 am
content: Quote from: camellos on August 05, 2025, 03:39:21 amKiCad of course. But I'm an extremely biased KiCad user myself. I very much appreciate Open Source software. I very much dislike the misty clouds, especially halfway around the world. And KiCad is improving significantly every year.For the thermometer stuff...In years long gone by a wet finger was a decent tool. If it sizzles it's too hot, and for the rest you can get an estimate of the temperature by how long you can keep your finger on the subject before it becomes uncomfortable.A step up is to use one or more thermometers. Temperature of heatsinks is difficult to predict (Even with a field solver) because the amount of air movement is hard to estimate, and thermal resistance to the environment is very dependent on air speed. For the bigger heat sinks, the cost of an designed in thermometer gives an uC the ability to adjust fan speed, or take bigger measures when needed. With heatsinks, you also always have to check the transistor (or IC) temperature too. Especially for beginners (or anyone who makes a mistake) you have to verify that heat transfer from the semiconductor to the heatsink is good. It's just a part of the design process."Real Designers" use field solvers for calculating temperatures. There are some Open Source versions, but those are a bit difficult to setup and use properly.For all the smaller stuff. The old fashioned way by putting a thermometer on everything that can get hot is still valid. A thermocouple with a tiny head and a small drop of thermal heatsink compound can be used to measure temperatures of any part that gets hot. But it's messy and time consuming. But with the current low costs of thermal camera's, their convenience outweighs the costs for any serious hobbyist, unless you are on a really tight budget.I don't have a thermal camera yet, but I'm thinking of buying one. Direct cause is that my Siglent SDS1104X-E makes too much noise, so I want to replace it's fan. But I first have to know which parts get hot enough to keep an eye on. And as soon as you open the case, temperatures start dropping. You can see the temperatures of all important parts in a few seconds with a thermal camera. If I'm thorough, I put a few thermometers on some hot IC's and measure their temperature in use and with a closed case. Then I can compare real temperatures form before and after the modification.

author: Messtechniker
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 08:46:43 am
content: Your skin section between upper lip and nose is quite temperature sensitive.Involves the risk of something jumping in to your face, though. So be careful.

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 06:25:23 pm
content: Quote from: Messtechniker on August 05, 2025, 08:46:43 amYes, but that does not mean it's a good temperature indicator for use in electronics.Fingers are less sensitive, but still plenty sensitive. If you can hold a transistor (resistor, whatever) between your fingers for 20+ seconds, you're quite certain that it's not too hot. If the device under test is hotter, then the time you can touch it before it becomes uncomfortable is a usable temperature indicator. You could even sort of calibrate it, but it also matter whether you touch metal (heatsink) plastic (transistor) or ceramics (resistor).If you have no thermometer at all, you can use a resistor, load it with it's nominal power for a few minutes so it reaches equilibrium and then touch it. (Do the first touch always briefly to prevent burns). The temperature will (should) be somewhere around the temperature stated in the datasheet (look at the derating curve).

author: asmi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 07:31:54 pm
content: Most modern power components can work up to 105°C or even more, so using fingers will quickly lead to heavy burns. There are thermal cameras which connect to a smartphone and use it's computational resources for image post-processing, this makes them significantly cheaper, while still being good enough for electronics work.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 09:10:57 pm
content: I bought a Flir C2 many years ago. It has become super handy for verification and fault finding. In some cases even to spot wrong resistor values by checking whether they heat up to the same temperature. A thermal camera can spot really minor temperature differences so milli-Watss of difference can be seen in smal SMD resistors.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 09:29:13 pm
content: i would say what previous posts have said, in a different way.A thermal camera is not necessary, and depending on your interests you may have better ways to spend limited instrumentation dollars. But they are really useful, and if your budget allows they also can show you many non-electronic things from how well your home is insulated to what is raiding your garden at night.Electronics hobbyists and professionals both were successful for decades using tools ranging from fingers, to thermocouples, thermal paint and thermometers. But at today's prices for thermal cameras, I know of no one who regrets making the purchase.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 09:31:52 pm
content: You can use a thermal camera, though it can be tricky to use.Focus, reflectiveness and other issues mean you need to get some experience to use it properly.You can also just glue/epoxy thermocouples to parts. It's a reliable way to measure the temperature."Too hot to touch" is usually 60-70C, which is within the operating temperature of almost all electronics components.

author: camellos
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 06, 2025, 01:54:08 am
content: Really liking all the tips people are sharing here.If anyone has photos or screenshots from when they used thermal imaging during PCB debugging, I’d love to see examples — especially for small SMD parts where the hotspot isn’t obvious to the naked eye.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2025, 09:18:01 pm
content: Quote from: camellos on August 06, 2025, 01:54:08 amThere is a thermal camera section on this forum, people post all kinds of stuff there.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2025, 10:52:43 pm
content: Quote from: camellos on August 06, 2025, 01:54:08 amThis forum posting shows how I found a problem on a complicated board quickly:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/advantest-r3477-9khz-to-13ghz-spectrum-analyzer/msg1446566/#msg1446566

author: camellos
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 02:33:50 am
content: Also — while digging around online I came across two thermal camera options that seem somewhat accessible: Thermal Master P2 Pro andFLIR One pro. I know FLIR has been around forever and has a strong reputation, but the Thermal Master looks newer and is priced lower, which caught my eye.I couldn't find much in-depth info on the P2 Pro though. Has anyone here tried both, or at least compared image quality, refresh rate, and software side-by-side? I'm mainly curious how well they do with small electronics work — like spotting subtle hotspots on a PCB or IC.Would really appreciate any hands-on impressions, especially from people who’ve used them on electronics instead of just HVAC or general inspections.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 09:08:18 pm
content: First result from google: