Practical PCB Design: A Hands-On Guide to Developing Printed Circuit Boards

Practical PCB Design: A Hands-On Guide to Developing Printed Circuit Boards by Mike D. Smith
English | 2027 | True EPUB | 272 pages | 40.3 MB

This hands-on, beginner-friendly book guides hobbyists and makers through every step of creating a custom printed circuit board (PCB), from conception through production.

Your circuit works on the breadboard. Now learn the concepts that turn it into a board ready for production.

You've built the circuit. It works on your breadboard. Now what?

For most makers and electronics enthusiasts, that's where the journey ends. Technical reference manuals assume you already know PCB fundamentals. Software tutorials show you which menu to click. Neither one teaches the underlying concepts: what a via is and why you need it, how layers work and why the stackup matters, how a schematic becomes something a manufacturer can actually build.

Practical PCB Design fills that gap. Based on the PCB design course Mike D. Smith has taught at the University of Rhode Island for nearly a decade, this book introduces the concepts, terminology, and design judgment that turn a working prototype into a reliable, production-ready board. Every chapter pairs clear explanation with hands-on lab exercises, so you're designing alongside the reading.

You'll learn how to:

Create schematics and component libraries from scratch
Understand PCB layers, stackups, and how material choices affect performance
Place components and route traces with intention, not guesswork
Set design rules and run checks before anything goes to fabrication
Generate output files and work confidently with manufacturers

The material is software-agnostic: whether you use KiCad, Altium, Eagle, or something else, the concepts apply. If you've ever wondered why your designs don't quite work once they leave the breadboard, or felt intimidated by the gap between working circuit and finished product, this book is for you.

Who This Book Is For:
This book is intended for anyone looking to design their first PCB, improve their PCB design skills, or expand their understanding of the terminology and technology involved in PCB design. This could include high school students participating in robotics competitions, maker or hobbyist electronics enthusiasts, and recent engineering graduates looking to transform their concept design into a more reliable or production-ready form. While the book is certainly intended for the technically minded, it’s written to appeal to electronics enthusiasts without years of industry experience.

I’ve intentionally structured this book so that you need only basic knowledge of electronics to follow along. I assume you’re familiar with passive circuit elements like resistors, capacitors, and inductors, as well as concepts like voltage and current. An understanding of digital logic, transistors, and operational amplifiers is also helpful. That said, I try to build concepts from the ground up, explaining each one as it is introduced, to limit the amount of prerequisite knowledge required.

Contents:

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