If folks are interested in best practices to follow when laying out a PCB, I really enjoy this series of videos on YouTube where someone whips one up live over the course of 3 hours.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7-8nUU6e3E" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7-8nUU6e3E</a>
Great tutorial.<p>I'm currently making a new type of MIDI controller, based on an Arduino Uno; I have been iterating on prototypes with different sensors. It's not very difficult (or time consuming) to solder the prototypes so they're a little more durable than breadboard.<p>Eventually I would like to make an integrated product that could be manufactured in small batches; but what is the benefit of doing an intermediate PCB using breakout boards? It seems all the real problems will come later when moving from breakout boards to single components?
Nice guide for beginners. Will add this to our Awesome Electronics list: <a href="https://github.com/kitspace/awesome-electronics/" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/kitspace/awesome-electronics/</a>
This is great, and timely for me. I've got some horrifying rats-nest prototypes in the field that I've been really wanting to replace with PCBs.<p>I'm looking forward to part two about doing the layout. That's the part where I get flummoxed.
It probably depends on the kinds of projects you do, but this kind of "halfway there" PCB seems like a lot of fuss for not a lot of gain. Why not just design the PCB the way you want it look for the final product, and then, in places where you'd still like to work with a breakout board or something, have jumpers (holes, really) so you can decide whether to let everything pass through the board as it would in the final product or whether it has to go someplace else? I see the author is answering the comments, so maybe they can explain?
Is Eagle a viable alternative to KiCad these days? I stopped using it around KiCad 4. (2015?) At that time, they seemed to be feature-equivalent, but KiCad has been improving fast since then.