Guides

This page contains some step-by-step guides on making homemade PCBs.

The guides are designed to be used by graduate students at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), but can also be useful for readers with:

The guides are divided into 3 sections:

  • Prototyping and Electronics
    Guides to help you get started with microcontrollers, breadboarding, bootloading, and understanding electricity
  • PCB Design in Eagle CAD
    Guides on setting up Eagle, and using it to design our schematics and board layouts
  • DIY Fabrication
    Guides on tools and fabrication techniques when making DIY PCBs, with a Bantam milling machine and SMD parts

Prototyping and Electronics

Guides to help you get started with microcontrollers, breadboarding, bootloading, and understanding electricity

Rules of Electricity

A slide show going through the basics of electronics theory, and other relavent information for when designing and making PCBs.

Arduino Uno: Components

Learn what all the components on an Arduino Uno PCB are doing, why they are needed, and what the bare minimum is to make a DIY Arduino.

Arduino Uno: Programming

Learn about what happens when a microcontroller is programmed, how to program a brand new chip, and using the Arduino bootloader.

Programming an ATtiny85

The ATtiny85 is a small microcontroller, popular because it can be used similar to an ATmega328 (from Arduino Uno), and because it is SMALL.

This guide will describe how to get a brand new ATtiny85 able to run your Arduino code.

Recommended Parts

Many SMD parts are just too small for us to assemble. This guide shows some specialty SMD parts that are big enough to solder, and they also have open source designs online to use as a starting point.

PCB Design in Eagle CAD

Guides on setting up Eagle, and using it to design our schematics and board layouts

Eagle Setup

This guide goes through Eagle download, install, and configuration with the Homemade Hardware repository.

Eagle Schematic Design - 1

Part 1 of Eagle Schematic Editor.

This guide describes how get use the Eagle schematic designer to add ports from libraries, and connect them together to make your circuit.

Eagle Board Design - 1

Part 1 of Eagle Board Design Editor.

This guide begins with a short overview of Eagle board design, and then ends of the guide describes board design commands in more detail.

Eagle Schematic Design - 2

Part 2 of Eagle Schematic Editor.

This guide shows how to simplify schematic drawings with names, labels, and frames.

Eagle Board Design - 2

Part 2 of Eagle Board Design Editor.

This guide on more advanced Eagle board design tools and techniques.

Redesign Online Circuits

This guide an example of how to start your design from one or multiple open source Eagle files online, and redesign to make it easier to fabricate

Eagle Part Design

Create a new library of parts in Eagle, draw symbols and footprints, or reuse designs from other libraries.

DIY Fabrication

Guides on tools and fabrication techniques when making DIY PCBs, with a Bantam milling machine and SMD parts

Bantam Setup

This guide describes how get the Bantam milling machine setup and ready to mill a PCB.

Bantam Milling - 1

This guide describes how to mill a PCB, starting from an Eagle board file, all the way to milling a complete PCB on the Bantam milling machine.

Bantam Milling - 2

This guide is part 2 of making PCBs with the Bantam milling machine. We will be focusing on making double-sided boards, and milling SVG files.

SMD Soldering

This guide describes how to do SMD soldering, using tweezers, solder paste, and a heat gun.

Solder Stencil

This guide describes how to use an Eagle file, transparency film, and a Bantam milling machine to make a solder stencil, and then use it to add solder paste to an entire PCB.

Soldering Vias with Wire

This short guide shows to to connect a PCB's top and bottom copper layers, using some wire and a soldering iron.

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