In this post, I'm going to share some of the tips and tricks that I've learned throughout the last couple years that have helped make assembling hundreds of new PCB prototypes for Particle a bit easier.
Your First Prototype: Preparing Assembly Materials (2/3)
Your First Prototype: Fabrication Specifications and Gerber Files (1/3)
We're excited to kick off a three part blog series this week about building your first PCB prototype. PCBs (printed circuit boards) are the heart and brains of every product that turns on, plugs in, or lights up. They contain electrical components that determine the behavior of your product, and come in all shapes and sizes.
In this first post, we're going to share some tips about defining and communicating PCB fabrication specifications, and creating gerber files for your prototype.
Creating and Optimizing a Bill of Materials
There are already a lot of great articles on the web on how to build and optimize a BOM. My goal for this particular post, though, is to go beyond the basic (but important!) notes on organization to touch on some tips that will help to improve communication, decrease costs, and prevent poor design decisions along the path from prototype to production-ready hardware.