Product Description

Printed circuit boards are at the heart of just about every electronic device made today - PCs, cell phones, MP3 players, PDAs, telephones, stereos, TVs, remote controls, cameras, your car, and even small appliances. The reason these items have come down in price over the years is because of printed circuit boards. Whereas before you had to pay someone to physically connect (and repair!) wires for each component (a time-consuming and thus expensive prospect), now an error-proof, custom "PCB" is installed instead.Hobbyists and designers can now start their projects with a printed circuit board, rather than using it as a last step (and contracting it out to someone else, as was previously the norm). It not only makes a more professional-looking prototype, but also makes it easy to mass-produce. And the techniques are the same for the hobbyist working on a single project. This will be by far the most modern book on the market, with the latest and greatest techniques for producing intricate PCB's at a fraction of the cost of sending them out.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151893 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From the Back Cover
FREE PCB SOFTWARE!

The EagleCAD light software inside does all the tasks described in this book -- schematic capture, layout, and autorouting. Run it on Windows or Linux.

DESIGN TO PRODUCTION -- EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR OWN PCBs

With Build Your Own Printed Circuit Board, you can eliminate or reduce your company's reliance on outsourcing to board houses, and cut costs significantly. Perfect for advanced electronics hobbyists as well, this easy-to-follow guide is by far the most up-to-date source on making PCBs. Complete in itself, the handbook even gives you PCB CAD software, on CD, ready to run on either Windows or Linux. (Some PCB software costs from $10,000 to $15,000!)

STEP-BY-STEP DIRECTIONS, AND A PRACTICE RUNTHROUGH

Written by a PCB designer and electronics expert, Build Your Own Printed Circuit Board gives you absolutely everything you need to design and construct a professional-looking prototype or production-ready PCB files with modern CAD tools.

You get:
* Instructions for every phase of project flow, from design schematics, sizing, layout, and autorouting fabrication
* The latest in PCB tips, tricks, and techniques
* Cutting-edge tactics for shrinking boards
* Guidance on generating CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) files to produce the board yourself or send it out
* A sample project, demonstrating all the book's techniques, that you can build and use in practical applications
* Discussions on using service bureaus to produce designs
* Expert comparison of CAD program options

THE BEST GUIDE TO BUILDING YOUR OWN PCBs!

About the Author
Al Williams (Houston, TX) is the author of 18 books, including many programming titles, as well as Embedded Internet Design, also published by McGraw-Hill. An electronics professional for over 20 years, he is principal of his own company, AWC, which produces hardware modules for microcontroller developers. Mr. Williams also designs PCBs for a wide array of clients.

Customer Reviews

XYZ's of Circuit Board Design & Construction
Mr. Williams has provided a unique guide for the neophyte and experienced designer in the art of designing circuit boards on a shoestring. The book and accompanying CD contains everything required to gain proficiency in schematic capture and PC board layout. The book goes beyond design and provides the processes and procedures to interact with contract board houses to produce high quality professional circuit boards. I recommend this book to anyone involved in the design and fabrication of electronic circuits.

It is good for learning the EAGLE software
It is short and easy to learn the basics of creating schematics, layout, and producing gerber files with the EAGLE software only.
A free basic version of EAGLE software is included on the CD and it is good enough for learning purpose. The Book's title is "Build Your Own Printed Circuit Board" which I think is misleading. The book deals with just the EAGLE software and does not teach how to physically build a printed circuit board. For learning the EAGLE software, it is a good starting point.

Read it once, use as reference later!
You can screw it up a few times with incomplete internet guides or you can read this detailed account of the most popular techniques for manufacturing your own pcb's. You will probably figure it out either way, but the wasted money on pcb's and other materials will pay for simply buying the book!

I used the "laser printer" process and it worked perfectly, exactly as described. I even have my name and the name of the year "professionally" printed into the copper!

If you want to send to a board house and don't know exactly what to do, buy this book! The author describes the file types and layers that are expected, along with everything you need to know about gerber files and other formats.

The book is also well-structured for use as a reference. I found myself cross-referencing many times and specific passages were always found within a few seconds. Read it once and keep it around as a reference!

Good luck, I hope that you are as happy with the results as I am.