connector for electrical circuit maker board

Today’s high-end server or switch PCB backplanes require 30 to 40 manufacturing fabrication steps and 28 to 50 (or more) layers of HDI circuit construction. In fact, I recall designing some of these using hand tools at DEC Maynard, MA, though the company eventually semi-automated the process with an X-Y automated wire-wrapping machine.Ī few years later, computer backplanes were fabricated as printed circuit boards (PCBs), manufactured with layers of woven fiberglass and copper trace circuits. The wire-wrap pin backplane connectors at that time typically had round-wired edge contact on the reverse end. This involved lots of hook-up wire and singular micro-coax for the clock circuits. High-circuit-count copper backplanes and midplanes often relied on wire-wrap point-to-point, or pin-to-pin layouts. It also allows you to sell your design if it turns out to be popular.During the ’60s and ’70s, the early mainframe computers and Telcom switches used complex dense wire-wrap technology. If you plan on making more than one or two of a given project, the payback on designing a board is pretty good- point-to-point wiring circuits on a protoboard is a hassle, and they tend to be less robust than purpose-designed boards.

Trying to design a board without a good schematic in place first is an exercise in futility.įinally, a few words on the utility of designing your own circuit boards. Your 20th board design will have fewer, but will still have some. Your first board design will have lots of problems. Open Source Hardware makes this easier than ever.

Look at other people's layouts to see what they have done.

Maybe that's a fair price to pay for convenience and price, maybe not.

Portability: some free programs do not allow you to export or convert your designs, locking you in to one supplier only.

Most of them allow you to pay for a license to upgrade their capability.

Capability: some programs place limitations on your design- number of layers, number of components, size of board, etc.Ease-of-use: if it's painful to use it, you won't.Community support: are there a lot of people using the package? The more people using it, the more likely you are to find ready-made libraries with the parts you need.Things to consider when choosing a package: Find a CAD package: there are a lot of low-cost or free options out there on the market for PCB design.How do you go about designing your own PCB? The ins and outs of PCB design are way too in depth to get into here, but if you really want to get started, here are some pointers:

Connector for electrical circuit maker board