Although I’ve only been using Fritzing for a few months, I’m rather new to PCB design.
I’d appreciate the assistance of those of you more seasoned users with a few problems I’ve encountered.
First off, I’m attempting to create a unique printed circuit board (PCB) for a tiny project that has an ESP32 microcontroller and a few additional parts.
Although I’ve completed the fundamental layout, I’m having trouble effectively routing the traces and making sure there are no design rule breaches.
Can you provide any best practices or advice on how to maximise trace routes and steer clear of typical pitfalls?
Second, I have to make a unique component that isn’t found in the Fritzing library as a standard.
Even after reading the instructions and watching a few demonstrations, I’m not quite sure how to proceed.
I would like a detailed tutorial or tableau documentation to an extensive resource on how to add custom components to the Fritzing library?
In Pcb view select routing->DRC (Design Rules check) which will check the board and complain about any errors. Best bet is probably upload the sketch (the .fzz file, upload is 7th icon from the left in the reply menu) so we can look at it and make suggestions. I don’t know of a good tutorial (there probably are some though!) on pcb layout, it is mostly experience over time and getting more experienced folks to review your design . One best practice is to route traces either horizontal, vertical or at 45 degrees.
Making parts is complex (and unlikely to get less so.) First try is a google search of the form “fritzing part part_number” (where part number is the part number of what you want or a description.) That will find existing parts that people have posted. Note posted parts can have errors so you need to check them. If you only need a small number of parts the best bet is to post a request in the parts help topic of the forum. I will usually make parts for folks as it isn’t worth trying to learn parts making for only a small number of parts. If you want to learn to make Fritzing parts these two tutorials (which usually stop parts making in its tracks ) apply to current Fritzing versions:
I lately learned there aren’t links to the videos in Old_Grey’s tutorial so you need to do a google search for the title and then they come up on YouTube.
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in advance.
) apply to current Fritzing versions: