PCB design for companies that have no electronics team.
A product idea becomes a board only when someone chooses the parts, fits them in the space and routes the copper, and that is a job a company without electronics engineers cannot easily staff. We design boards in KiCad, and our 4-in-1 motor controller board has its power copper done and a design rule check with zero errors.
The problem
The size and shape of a board are usually decided before anyone knows whether the parts will fit, and a company without electronics engineers rarely has someone to check. We would typically check the parts list against the board outline before layout, so that the size is a decision and not a surprise, and agree the layer count and the track, space and via rules with the board's power and density in mind. Choices about parts and assembly are made the same way. On our LoRaWAN node we picked the MiniSO-8 version of a battery fuel gauge over the DFN-8 one, because it is easier to rework by hand on bring-up boards. We would raise questions like that at the start of a project: who will assemble the first boards, how they will be probed, and what will need reworking.
Review points matter as much as layout for a company new to hardware, so we would split a schematic into blocks that can be read and checked one at a time, and keep power copper and signal routing as separate stages of the layout. For a first board we would also plan for bring-up. Test points, a way to power the board from a bench supply and a clear programming header cost very little on a layout and save a great deal of time when the first boards arrive. We would agree with you who orders the parts and which suppliers are acceptable, so that availability is checked before the design is committed to a part that cannot be bought.
What we've built
A 4-layer motor controller board in KiCad
The 4-in-1 ESC for our indoor quad drives four motors from one 40 × 40 mm board. The schematic passes its electrical rules check, the board is placed and the power copper is done. It is a v0 design that has not been fabricated, and the remaining signal connections are being routed by hand.
v0, designed in KiCad. Power copper done and DRC with 0 errors; signal routing under way by hand. Not fabricated.
| Layer | What we did | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Stack and rules | Four copper layers with 0.2 mm track and 0.2 mm space, and 0.3 / 0.6 mm vias. | |
| Parts | 24 N-channel MOSFETs share the board with NSG2065Q gate drivers and TPS70933 regulators. | |
| Mounting | The board sits on four M3 holes at 30.5 mm spacing, shared with the other two boards in the stack, and its 4.0 mm holes take grommets so it can be soft-mounted. | |
| Routing | The power copper is done first, then the signals are routed by hand. | Power copper complete · signals in progress |
How working with us goes
- 01 Scope We agree what has to be built, where it lives and where the data goes.
- 02 Prototype Working hardware and firmware on your bench, tested against real conditions.
- 03 Pilot A small batch on real sites, with fixes folded back into the design.
- 04 Production Design for manufacture, a production run, and support once it is in the field.
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