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micahd02
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Assist HS Student with Circuit Board Layout Engineering?

12/15/2019 1:46 PM

I have a physics student who needs some help with circuit board layout. He is working with advanced very small outline SMDs in a high speed PWM power supply circuit, and is experiencing a lot of stray currents and transient signals in his current board design. He is able to pay for some advice, though I don't know his funding levels.

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Pathfinder Tags: Electronics Design EM Noise PCB Layout
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BruceFlorida
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#1

Re: Engineering help available in US, particularly Northern VA, to assist a HS student with circuit board layout engineering?

12/15/2019 9:47 PM

A good first step might be to have him figure out how to pick an issue or two and post them here in a manner that is summarized and streamlined enough to fit a posting but detailed enough that we might be able to help. That will do at least two things. The easy one is that we might help him. The other one is the thought process and 'self negotiations" involved in composing the posting might be very beneficial to him.

I frequently say that design engineering is a job where you are responsible for doing what you don't know how to do. When a design engineer knows how to do something he/she documents it and turns it over to Production. When we figure out how to deal with not knowing what we are doing then we earn our pay as design engineers.

Please extend to your student a "Welcome to Design Engineering".

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micahd02
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#2
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Re: Engineering help available in US, particularly Northern VA, to assist a HS student with circuit board layout engineering?

12/15/2019 11:09 PM

Thank you, and I will both pass on the welcome, and encourage him to engage here, himself. In fact, looking for YOUR answer was my intended method of providing a "goad" to moving him into the community.

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Just an Engineer
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#3

Re: Engineering help available in US, particularly Northern VA, to assist a HS student with circuit board layout engineering?

12/16/2019 1:35 AM

Comments about "high speed switching" and "Stray current" immediately bring to mind thoughts of ground planes and looking at current path details to look for capacitive coupling and if the speeds are high enough the inductive opportunities in tracks.

There are many here with experience in that sphere of engineering who (as you know) will offer advice for free, especially when we are handed enough "burley" to get our interests.

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BruceFlorida
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Re: Engineering help available in US, particularly Northern VA, to assist a HS student with circuit board layout engineering?

12/16/2019 6:46 AM

Be sure he includes high in the posting that he is a HS student from VA. We don't bite but sometimes we do bark more than we should. We wouldn't want to start this with us peeing on the carpet when we should be wagging our tails.

(Maybe we should do a little work on that carpet peeing?)

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Rixter
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#5

Re: Assist HS Student with Circuit Board Layout Engineering?

12/16/2019 8:09 AM

Two things come to mind. Make sure the board is clean of any solder flux to avoid stray currents. The second is to make sure there are decoupling capacitors placed close to active components to remove transient signals.

https://medium.com/@jainrohit088/how-to-remove-pcb-soldering-flux-3204cb0bf4e9

http://blog.optimumdesign.com/how-to-place-a-pcb-bypass-capacitor-6-tips
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micahd02
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#6

Re: Assist HS Student with Circuit Board Layout Engineering?

12/16/2019 1:49 PM

Thank you one and all. Christian, are you on? This is for you.

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SolarEagle
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#7
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Re: Assist HS Student with Circuit Board Layout Engineering?

12/17/2019 10:13 PM

Intermission....

We have a limited budget....

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micahd02
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#8

Re: Assist HS Student with Circuit Board Layout Engineering?

05/11/2020 11:28 AM

In a general statement, and by way of closure. Admins please take note.

I am still in touch with this student, but due to the quarantine here in the United States, only at a distance. I do not believe he is still working on the same project, but the competition for which he needed this help has been indefinitely postponed. As it is limited to middle and high school students, and he is this year a senior in high school (12th year ), it appears that he will no longer be eligible after this date. As a result, I think the help is no longer needed.

I do know that he has been attending some courses at MIT online, since his 10th grade year. Those courses include engineering. As a result, I expect he will get very direct help with this issue if it arises in the future.

Thank you all for your responses, andyour help.

Micahd

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AaronWilliams
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#9

Re: Assist HS Student with Circuit Board Layout Engineering?

05/17/2020 10:45 AM

For me, circuitry has always been a complicated science. I tried to study it all year long, communicating with specialists in real life, correspondence on forums.
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ImogenCampbell
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#10

Re: Assist HS Student with Circuit Board Layout Engineering?

10/20/2020 4:08 AM

good post bro
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AaronWilliams (1); BruceFlorida (2); ImogenCampbell (1); Just an Engineer (1); micahd02 (3); Rixter (1); SolarEagle (1)

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