An Absolute Beginners Guide To Designing PCBs using Easy EDA - Make PCB From A Schematic

Learn how to make your own PCBs from a schematic. This video is for absolute beginners who want to make their very first PCB. I use a simple easy to understand schematic for a signal injector and take you through the whole process from drawing the schematic, laying out the components, creating the PCB design, exporting the gerber file and ordering your first PCB from PCBWay. This video will not try to teach you all the features of the PCB design software but it will get you started making your first steps if you never did this before. I really enjoyed making this video and the PCB, this is something I will definitely explore further.

Part One of this project is here

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Richard

[paulc]

50 Years in Electronics repair, never designed a PCB in my life, but my god I'm going to have a go after this video, thanks Richard

[EETechStuff]

Excellent Richard! A lot of people are very intimidated by the thought of what seems to be a difficult process, but it has become so simplified in the last 10-20 years that I think most would be absolutely amazed at how inexpensive and easy it is. Especially compared to what we used to do back in the day, using tubs of acid and and drawing the traces manually. Although some retro hobbyists still like going down that old rabbit hole for some reason. BTW, the techniques you showed are excellent, and very similar to what's done in other PCB design software.

[eross]

this was very helpful. i was getting hung up on the open nets. but now i see how you fixed that. thank you.

[Foobar_The_Fat_Penguin]

A perhaps interesting alternative to EasyEDA for beginners could be Fritzing. It's OpenSource and available for Win, Mac, and Linux. Unlike other software, it doesn't start with the schematic, but with the breadboard layout. So if you're more practically oriented and already have a functioning prototype on a breadboard, you can just recreate it virtually in the software, then have it automatically create schematics and PCBs from that.
KiCAD would be another OpenSource program that appears to be in widespread use and which I have used to make my first tiny PCBs not so long ago. It also did the job, although it looked to be a bit more complicated than EasyEDA or Fritzing. But even a complete moron like me could use it, so it's probably perfectly fine for normal people.

[willthomsen]

I’d love if you did more of these videos and design circuits more and more complicated to do bigger and bigger jobs from scratch where every piece fits and why

[IlBiggo]

Funny that you're using JLPCB's software to prepare a PCB for PCBWay :)
As you've surely noticed, you can order PCBs from JLPCB through EasyEDA. But of course, having the option to choose a manufacturer is a nice thing. I'm actually surprised that EasyEDA doesn't lock you into ordering from JLPCB. Kudos to the guys for not being greedy!
One interesting thing to do is make the autorouter draw the PCB and then edit it. For some reasons, I don't like VIAs. Most of the times I can rotate or move components around to have shorter traces, or less jumping from a side of the PCB to the other. EasyEDA will notify you of bad rerouting or overlapping tracks, so it's easy to design a cleaner PCB. Or, in my case, probably mess it up but still have a functioning result :D

[nigelfewster]

Thanks Richard your channel for me is one of the most interesting and educational I have come across on you tube. Have a good Christmas in the sun and I will be waiting in the wet and cold U.K. for the follow video on those pcbs.

[geoffedwards]

Thanks Richard! I am new at PCB creation. I have tried a couple of different design tools but haven't settled on anything yet. I will give Easy EDA a try. Best wishes.

[Simon-mzsf]

Thanks Richard. When time poor getting an excellent intro and how to like this goes a long way. Merry Xmas

[garrypowell]

Sorry Richard but the switch as designed shorts the battery from Vcc to ground. Otherwise I love the simplicity of EasyEDA. Love your work. All the best from Australia.

[SS-mjmq]

Thank you for sharing this video it means a lot. I think you did a great job 👏👏👏happy holidays to you and a merry Christmas 👍⛄🌲🤗😁💯

[frankbaron]

to even up the spaceing, with the components selected, go to format, selectect distrbute horizontally

[seansanders]

Thank you for your video they are very helpful. I have a question I hope u can answer I'm very interested in learning electronic repair but don't know anything . Can u recommend some good books to read to get me started.Your videos are a huge help.But I do better when I can combined it with reading it helps me retain the info. I hope u see this message and can help me out have a great day.

[Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya, thats a very easy way to make your pcb's nice

[benjaminbeier]

The switch could have been rotated. Also I wonder if it was possible to layout this without any vias. Maybe you can upload the file for us to play with it. 😄
Really loved this video. It reminded me at my teenage years when I was exploring electronics and building mikrocontroller boards for robots. Nowadays (15 years later) I am a Sysadmin and rarely have time to play with PCB stuff.

[andymouse]

I started with EASYEDA but it was cloud based and painfully slow but it taught me enough to move to a professional tool called KICAD are you gonna hand solder the 0603 smd parts yourself ? I personally like to solder he 0805. Merry

[Enigma]

I want to continue to make single layer boards at home, but up my game by using PCB layout software (instead of making my own layout drawings using graphic tools). Does anyone have any recommedations for easy to use SINGLE LAYER design software?

[anthonydenn]

Great video Richard, I really like the way you can position every part exactly where you want it on the board and the software does the rest, amazing. You don't have to meticulously layout everything right, like I expected it to be like. Might have to give this a go myself sometime 😀

[shagreobe]

I downloaded KICAD, and tried it out...think EasyEDA is simpler, have to dl it

[Blinkerdd]

So... I have a few circuits for guitar pedals that are fairly large. The schematic is laid out, I just haven't had the time to go and finish the actual pcb layout. If you want to do another video that dives deeper into pcb layouts- I can send you one of them.