step 1: objective
Since the dot com boom (and bust), more and more engineers throw themselves into the world of software engineering due to ease of development and self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, the world of hardware engineering has been forgotten due to higher costs of development and slower return of satisfaction. With the age of big data upon us, accessing data in our real, physical world is growing rapidly with needs for various applications such as water pollution data, textile technologies, extensive wireless communication, etc. These advances are impossible without development of customized electronics and hardware.
In addition, many startups focus on using pre-designed hardware for their designs to decrease costs of hardware revisions. These costs can be much more manageable by designing your *first* board correctly with plenty of flexibility and soldering your own components. The finished product is much more cleaner and requires no jumpers or wires as needed for generic solutions such an Arduino development board. In fact, but using surface mount components, custom printed circuit boards can be the size of a fingernail for each integration into various products.
This website dictates the steps for a recent electrical engineer graduate to develop printed circuit boards (PCBs) to integrate sensors and communications for any application. Universities tend to focus on theory and simulation of analog and digital circuits without developing more practical skills such as PCB design and development. The practical laboratories in school use breadboards instead of PCBs leaving graduates with a gap between academia and industry that can be bridged by this website.
Pillars of Hardware Development
1. Timeline - Prepare a timeline for your project. Unlike software engineering, the luxury of immediate feedback and correction does not exist. Making errors on a printed circuit board costs time and money. To get a cheap board, it will take a couple weeks of time for the fabrication house to re-make your board. If you want the correction overnight, it will cost a hefty sum (depending on board size and complexity), but even a simple board overnight will cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.
2. Flexibility - Revisions and re-fabricating your PCB can take weeks, so building in maximum flexibility is critical. By using empty space on the board to fit connections for pins and wires as well as various components, your PCB can be perfect or slightly modified to perfection on the first revision.
3. Overview and Clarity - Make sure your vision is clear. What is the objective of the board? Is there sufficient input/output information for a firmware programmer to debug or a user to use the product? A block diagram is useful to show what will be developed.
The most critical step of hardware design is the planning. What do you want to measure? What is being converted? How much resolution is required? What if your plan doesn't work? Can you remove and add components to Plan B?
In addition, many startups focus on using pre-designed hardware for their designs to decrease costs of hardware revisions. These costs can be much more manageable by designing your *first* board correctly with plenty of flexibility and soldering your own components. The finished product is much more cleaner and requires no jumpers or wires as needed for generic solutions such an Arduino development board. In fact, but using surface mount components, custom printed circuit boards can be the size of a fingernail for each integration into various products.
This website dictates the steps for a recent electrical engineer graduate to develop printed circuit boards (PCBs) to integrate sensors and communications for any application. Universities tend to focus on theory and simulation of analog and digital circuits without developing more practical skills such as PCB design and development. The practical laboratories in school use breadboards instead of PCBs leaving graduates with a gap between academia and industry that can be bridged by this website.
Pillars of Hardware Development
1. Timeline - Prepare a timeline for your project. Unlike software engineering, the luxury of immediate feedback and correction does not exist. Making errors on a printed circuit board costs time and money. To get a cheap board, it will take a couple weeks of time for the fabrication house to re-make your board. If you want the correction overnight, it will cost a hefty sum (depending on board size and complexity), but even a simple board overnight will cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.
2. Flexibility - Revisions and re-fabricating your PCB can take weeks, so building in maximum flexibility is critical. By using empty space on the board to fit connections for pins and wires as well as various components, your PCB can be perfect or slightly modified to perfection on the first revision.
3. Overview and Clarity - Make sure your vision is clear. What is the objective of the board? Is there sufficient input/output information for a firmware programmer to debug or a user to use the product? A block diagram is useful to show what will be developed.
The most critical step of hardware design is the planning. What do you want to measure? What is being converted? How much resolution is required? What if your plan doesn't work? Can you remove and add components to Plan B?