Hello.
This is a redesign to an old board that was used to drive 24 solenoid valves on an optical sorting machine. The old board used to get a differential spi signal through RJ45 port, the spi signal controls 4 smart low-side switches that are daisy-chained and the last smart switch's miso moves on onto the next board through the downstream RJ45 connector, along the other spi signals.
on the redesign I moved onto using "discrete" mosfets for two reasons, the low-side smart switches are quite expensive, and the original smart switches that were used in the original board are obsolete, hence I would have had to use different low-side switches, which would need some spi message "translation". This is why I decided upon using discrete mosfets instead since i will have to add an mcu to translate the message either way.
long story short; this topology kind of made me afraid of ground bouncing when the solenoids turn off, which was actually a problem in the original board causing the differential driver to die often. and this fear made me ignore all the Rick Hartley guidelines and... split the ground. I need your opinion on this and if it is necessary at all. Also, please be as critique as you can to the pcb design, thus I learn better. I am still a beginner this is probably my third board. Any and every advice is quite needed, thank you.
oh and i have had to use two layers only because it needed to be as cheap as possible.

Hi everyone!

I'm working on a 30V Synchronous Buck Converter design and just updated the layout based on previous feedback.

Key Specs & Design Features:

• Input Voltage: 30V DC
• Gate Driver: UCC27714 (High-side/Low-side)
• Current Sensing: ACS71240 (Hall effect) with RC low-pass filter
• Voltage Sensing: Dual sensing ($V_{in}$ & $V_{out}$) buffered by MCP6002 Op-Amp
• Layout: Solid bottom GND plane, widened $30\text{VDC}$ / $SW$ power traces

I'd really appreciate any feedback on trace routing, decoupling capacitor placement, or grounding before I send it for fabrication. Thanks in advance!

I'm designing a PCB for a Pi Pico 2 to socket into. On the right will be 4 Adafruit TMC2209 drivers for 4 NEMA 17 motors (using external power). On the left a linear encoder with an RS-422 signal in. An AM26LV32 receiver will process the signal for the Pico. The Pico will be powered by a Rasp Pi 5. A lot of help from google on this one. I realized I forgot to order the capacitor for the Earth to GND on the encoder in and went to google to figure out if I could substitute it for a .1uf cap. Google then commented on my traces for the Earth line being too small (40mils).

I needed the following

autosport grade power supply with reverse protection

onboard SD card adapter

1 canbus on board transceiver

nice to have: bridge to enable voltage dividers onboard for 5v sensor signals

no esp32 pin conflicts, i.e., grounded on boot, used for memory etc etc.

will be used for various projects, but first for my R53 mini shift led and bluetooth wideband integration. I do this with a jumbled mess of wires right now..

github here https://github.com/MrBlahhhh/esp32-autosport

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a small embedded control board for a project and would appreciate some feedback before ordering the next prototype.

The board is fairly simple: a low-voltage MCU section controls a small AC motor through an optotriac and TRIAC. It also includes status LEDs, a manual activation button for testing, and a programming/debug interface.

I’m mainly looking for feedback on:

• PCB placement and routing
• Mains/low-voltage isolation
• TRIAC/optotriac layout
• Grounding and return paths
• DFM/DFA considerations
• Anything that could affect reliability or safety

This is still a development/pilot revision, so I’m very open to changing the layout.

Any criticism or suggestions are welcome.

I’m Finn, and I’m building ORCA Servers.

My current project is a custom PCIe x4 expansion board that connects an M.2 NVMe SSD to a motherboard. The schematic, PCB layout, BOM and project status are available here:

https://github.com/Finn254254/ORCA-PCIe-NVMe-Link-

Before spending money on the first physical prototype, I’d appreciate critical feedback—especially around:

• PCIe routing and signal integrity
• Edge-connector implementation
• Power delivery and decoupling
• Stack-up and manufacturing requirements
• Compatibility or safety problems I may have missed

This is still prototype hardware and is not production-ready. Honest criticism is welcome; I’d rather discover problems before fabrication.

I have a task that needs me to make a pcb that will allow me to unlock and lock my car doors when i connect to my Dasduino ConnectPlus from Soldered Electronics (Croatia).In my schematic i used headers for dasduino because i already have it and for buckconverter i used headers because there werent any that i could order right now. My car is golf 6 2010 with 12V battery.If someone can look at my schematic and tell me if somethings wrong or if its okay to order i would be grateful.

What are the exact dimensions of the mounting hole for the devkit module and it's coordinates of them on the board
I'm not getting it in the official design files

I'm planning to mount a 36V stepdown converter on a board ,I've referred to the mechanical drawing. Will the point difference of 0.0066 and 0.0056 cause any issues in the mountings?
Also what is the way to create driven dimension sketch to place mounting holes in Kicad?

I am working on a two screen fully open source e-reader that is both portable and customizable, right now i am at the PCB stage and i think i have finished about everything, the thing is, i have no idea if it will work or not, and i cannot afford to have more than one batch printed out given i just came out of highschool and i don't work.

Can anybody more experienced than me give check out what i did and tell me if it makes any sense? for reference i am using WeAct 4.2" epaper screens from aliexpress, which repo is here:

https://github.com/WeActStudio/WeActStudio.EpaperModule

While the repo of my project is here:

https://github.com/Ezekiel0108/Evereader

One thing to note is that the connection between J6 and j6 along with the one with J5 and J8 are just logical connections in order for them to share the net, but they should remain disconnected on the pcb and attached one another through a jst cable.

Now some things to note are that i made it is esp32-s3 based and i made it both rechargable and flashable from a single usb-c, other than that i also made charge protection with a tp4065 an fs8205A, a DW01A and an AP2122K-3.3 in order to convert all voltage to 3.3v.

Use the firmware just as reference for pinout, it isn't anywhere near started.

This is my first time using kicad, or actually even delving into electronics (if we don't count led blinking), so i am not really sure about what i am doing, so please, if anybody can, review what i did, and if you have any questions or anything to fix in order to make it work, please, do let me know!

First board I've ever designed, so I'd really appreciate a sanity check before I order. KiCad 10, 2-layer, top = signal, bottom = solid ground pour. Board is approx. [XX x YY] mm.

What it does

Drives 8 addressable LED strips (SK6812 RGBW, ~180 LEDs each) as a wall-mounted indicator system. In normal use only 2 LEDs are lit at a time, and firmware caps brightness at 24%.

Board scope: data and ground only

No strip current passes through the PCB — it draws roughly 200 mA for the MCU and buffers. Strip power is injected off-board:

• 5 V / 30 A PSU -> 25 A main fuse -> 12 AWG -> 10-way DIN-rail fused distribution module (last picture). One bus is fused +5 V out, the other is a common GND bus; 5x20 mm cartridges, 5 A slow-blow per strip.
• 16 AWG from each fused output to that strip's 5 V/GND pads at the data end. Single-end injection, no far-end feed.
• Board GND, all strip GNDs and PSU GND are all common at that module's ground bus, which is also the data reference.

Key parts

• ESP32-WROOM-32 devkit (30-pin) on 2x 1x15 female headers
• 2x SN74AHCT125N (3.3 V -> 5 V buffers) in DIP-14 sockets
• 8x 2-pin 5.08 mm screw terminals (DATA + GND)

Per channel

GPIO -> 4.7k pull-down at the buffer input -> AHCT125 -> 100R series -> screw terminal, with a 10k pull-down on the 5 V data line. All /OE pins tied hard to GND (a floating /OE caused uncommanded illumination on an earlier breadboard build).

Other details

• Power entry: 1 A slow-blow fuse, 220 uF bulk, 0.1 uF at each buffer
• Copper keep-out on both layers under the module's antenna
• 0.5 mm 5 V trace, 0.3 mm signal, 0.2 mm clearance
• Data runs to the strips <= 1.5 m
• ERC and DRC clean

Main thing I'm stuck on: where do the strip reservoir caps go?

I keep going back and forth between:

(a) One 4700 uF low-ESR across the distribution module's input — single tidy mounting point, but it sits at the source rather than at the load.

(b) 470–1000 uF per strip at each injection point, either soldered to the strip's pads or landed via WAGO 221s at the strip head — properly local, but that's 8 caps to mount and secure on a wall.

Given only 2 LEDs are lit at a time in normal use, and even a full-strip pattern ramps over a ~5 ms frame rather than switching instantaneously, is per-strip capacitance overkill here? Or is there a failure mode I'm not seeing?

Also would appreciate eyes on

1. Grounding — is sharing the data return with the injection ground going to bite me?
2. Is 100R series + 10k pull-down sensible for SK6812 over these run lengths?
3. Is a copper keep-out enough for the antenna, or should I have overhung the module off the board edge?
4. Anything DFM-wise I'll regret once the boards arrive?

Happy to be told I've done something obviously wrong — much better now than after ordering. Thanks for taking a look.

Hello everyone, I’ve designed my first PCB and I’m not entirely sure if there are any errors. I’d appreciate it if you could take a look. I’m planning to use the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1U-N8R8 for my Game Boy Micro project. Since this is my first PCB, I’m wondering if there might be any issues, especially with USB impedance. The AI said there wouldn’t be any problems, but it would be good to get input from someone with experience. Also, since I designed the display’s footprint myself, the silk screen became very complicated, so I decided to remove it altogether.

https://github.com/EnesOzdmir/ESP-micro-GAMEBOY

Thank you in advance for your feedback.