How do you get into designing circuits?

[The Lightning Stalker]

Get one of these.

 

[djQUAN]

I had one of those when I was young

 

[Sigurthr]

Haha, so did I. I couldn't have been more than seven years of age. That brings back such memories! I think one of my first projects was a rain gauge using a 7segment LED.

 

[ARG]

I had one too, I remember getting the multi-strand wire I had tangled in the spring terminals

 

[Cereal Killer]

I know I'm new here so you all probably just assume I'm talking out my ass but I'm pretty good at eagle (I'm a huge contributor on BLF), and the actual PCB design process in eagle is my single favorite part out of everything I do. It's like art and a puzzle mixed together.

I recommend the BLF video tutorial series by member there Mattaus, no longer the way I do it but that will get you up and running, it covers everything from .lbr parts, .sch drawing and .brd layout. It's in the DIY/modding sub-forum.

I've found new ways I like better for pretty much all the processes he covers but that's how I originally learned and it does get you going makin usable boards.

2-words: ground plane (not covered in video's). Use them.

Single most important thing to remember for a noob- NEVER EVER CHANGE THE GRID IN YOUR .sch or .lbr, parts WILL NOT connect if you draw either of those in SI units. Almost all .sch's are done in inches, you MUST use the same.

 

[rhd]

I know I'm new here so you all probably just assume I'm talking out my ass but I'm pretty good at eagle (I'm a huge contributor on BLF), and the actual PCB design process in eagle is my single favorite part out of everything I do. It's like art and a puzzle mixed together.

I recommend the BLF video tutorial series by member there Mattaus, no longer the way I do it but that will get you up and running, it covers everything from .lbr parts, .sch drawing and .brd layout. It's in the DIY/modding sub-forum.

I've found new ways I like better for pretty much all the processes he covers but that's how I originally learned and it does get you going makin usable boards.

2-words: ground plane (not covered in video's). Use them.

Single most important thing to remember for a noob- NEVER EVER CHANGE THE GRID IN YOUR .sch or .lbr, parts WILL NOT connect if you draw either of those in SI units. Almost all .sch's are done in inches, you MUST use the same.

I ran into this exact issue the other day with an .sch file someone sent me. Easy solution? There's a ULP that realigns to your new grid settings.

You should link people to that tutorial. As far as I know, it's okay on LPF to link to BLF (my bad if that's wrong).

 

[Cereal Killer]

Link-

Eagle Video Tutorials BLF Style | BudgetLightForum.com

Like I say this is how I learned tho at this point I've basicly evolved my technique to better fit my needs and am doing very little the same as shown there. One more tip for now- don't remove the bounding box (free version) like he does, no reason to and it's pretty annoying getting the "can't place parts here" warning EVERY time you try, also don't center on 20,20, to near the edge, I center on 50,40 (working in mm's)

I am happy to answer any specific questions (here or in PM). Search my name (Cereal_Killer) on OSHPark for some of my open source stuff (only about half of my projects are open source and most of the good shit is proprietary but atleast you can see some of my work)
https://oshpark.com/profiles/Cereal_Killer

If it turns out linking to BLF isn't cool Ill remove it right away (or no butthurt if a mod does it for me if I'm not quick enough). Sorry if it's not ok.