Electronic – PCB design review

microcontrollerpcbpcb-design

I am designing a control board for an analog audio amplifier, with a touch screen interface.

This is my first board I have ever laid out and routed and I was just wondering if people check my design look before I send it out to get it printed.

Quick rundown of the connectors on the board:

  • J7 is the 18v AC coming in from a transformer
  • J2 is a 20 pin jtag connector
  • JX is connected to a LCD / Touch screen module
  • J3R & J3L are control lines going to a digital potentiometers to control the gain and the volume

Below is the BOM

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Screen capture of the board it's a four layer board with the top inner layer being a ground plain.

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Let me know what ever you think. Like I said this is my first time laying out a board so I did use the auto router and the fixed it in some places. I would rather be brutally honest and tell me to redesign if need be, before I waste $66 on a board that isn't going to work.

Best Answer

Just a couple of random points. I didn't do a complete analysis, mostly because what I saw was serious enough to not warrant that.

  1. Switch to SMD ceramic caps. The lead inductance of TH caps makes them practically useless (talking about the normal 0.1 uF caps, not bulk caps).
  2. Might as well switch to SMD resistors, too.
  3. Power traces look very thin. Especally the lines going to the linear regulators.
  4. I have no confidence that you calculated the thermal dissipation of the linear regulators, or that you have a way to cool them.
  5. The vias look very large. Might be able to make them smaller to give you better signal routing.
  6. It is very hard to tell from the picture, but I think that you have vias so close together that they are forming slots/voids in the power/gnd planes.
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